#whitby abbey

Visiting Whitby Abbey a few weekends ago, worth the famous 200 steps to get there for the wonderful if not dull sunshine desperately peeking from the clouds!

February 2018

chriskenchphotography:

Whitby Abbey, North Yorkshire

Whitby Abbey

The impressive and ruinous abbey looms over Whitby, and it is not hard to see how it inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula. These are the remains of the thirteenth century Benedictine abbey. However, the history of the site stretches much further back than this, including evidence of late Bronze Age settlement. 

My own interest is on its Anglian history, of course. The name for the site at that time was Streaneshalch and it is referenced in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People as the home of Cædmon, our earliest English poet.

Cædmon’s Hymn was one of the first poems I translated when learning Old English. Living in Yorkshire and exploring the north east of England, I’ve had the opportunity to better contextualise some of what I’ve learned of Anglo-Saxon history.

Today we visited Whitby Abbey along the coast in North Yorkshire! Additional photos and a wee bit of history to follow.

heaveninawildflower:

‘Whitby Abbey in Mist’ ( late 19th to early 20th century ).

Gelatin silver print from the original glass negative by Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, (British, 1853 - 1941). Printed by Bill Eglon Shaw.

Image and text courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art.

I mean tbh it would still look like this on a modern camera in some weathers.

Whitby Abbey [taken 11/06/2016]