Whitby Abbey, Whitby, North Yorkshire

Photograph taken 1896 - 1920 © Reproduced by permission of Historic England Archive ref: BB98/02515

A view of the Abbey from the east. The first monastery here was founded in AD 657 by King Oswy of Northumbria. In 1078 the abbey was re-established by Reinfrid, one of William the Conqueror’s knights who had become a monk. It was a Benedictine Abbey. The present ruined buildings were begun in about 1220 in the Early English style of Gothic. The abbey was dissolved on 14 December 1539 when there were twenty two monks and domestic staff in residence. The abbey church was left intact at the Dissolution and was almost complete as late as 1711 but is now in ruins. Later the Gothic ruins of Whitby Abbey were to inspire Bram Stoker in writing the prototype horror story 'Dracula'. This site is now in the care of English Heritage (2010).

Location

North Yorkshire Whitby

Period

Medieval (Middle Ages) (1066 - 1484)

Themes

A nunnery was first documented here in 603. A monastery was founded during the abbacy of Aldhelm (c675-705). It became Benedictine in the reign of Edgar (959–975) and remained so until dissolved in 1539. The final Abbey Church was built circa 1160-70 and had 13th/14th and 15th century additions. The 431 feet (131 m) tall spire, collapsed in a storm around 1500. The west tower fell around 1550. As a result of these two collapses, less than half of the original building stands today. The abbey was closed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 by Henry VIII. It was sold, with all its lands, to William Stumpe, a rich merchant. He gave the abbey church to the town for continuing use as a parish church, and filled the abbey buildings with twenty looms for his cloth-weaving enterprise.
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Whitby Abbey, Whitby, North Yorkshire

Location

Period

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