Whitby, Yorkshire is a small seaside town probably most famous for its connections to the novel, Dracula, the abbey that we’d visited just before this, and the influx of goths each year because of the aforementioned Dracula connection. We spent a few hours there simply because it was in Yorkshire and so were we, with neither of us having a huge interest in horror novels, but both of us always enjoying anywhere near the water. Plus, we were hungry and in need of some lunch. This post, therefore, is mostly just a series of photos taken while walking around the town to give you a feel for what Whitby looks like, or at least what it looked like in 2011.
It was cloudy and threatening to rain when we first reached Whitby so we had a very short stroll before finding a pub and treating ourselves to some fish and chips, which was lovely, and a pint each of Old Peculier, which was not. I don’t know if they still do it up in Yorkshire, but at the time we visited they used a widget to create a “creamflow” feel to literally every single drink they poured. This had the effect of making everything taste silky smooth and all very similar, while also maintaining a head on the beer all the way to the bottom of the glass. Old Peculier should never have a head on it. It was an abomination.
The late afternoon weather was far better after we’d finished our lunch and we wandered around Whitby, more-or-less aimlessly.
One of the attractions at Whitby is the Whalebone Arch. Before the arrival of gas and electric lighting, whale oil was a prized commodity and a large whaling fleet operated out of Whitby. Fortunately for the whales the practice died out once humanity realised it could endanger an entire planet with its search for resources rather than just limit itself to one species.
Many years after this visit to Whitby we would take a cruise down to the Falkland Islands where a whalebone arch with four jaw bones was on display in Stanley, so there.
Whitby also has an association with Captain James Cook, hence the statue of him there too. Cook’s first experience of sailing came after moving to Whitby in his late teens and becoming involved in the coal transportation business. When he later in life explored the world on HMS Endeavour, the ship had formerly been a collier’s vessel built in Whitby as well.
While we didn’t do a lot in Whitby itself other than moan about the state of the beer we’d had, we’d enjoyed the abbey and seen a few museums around that on a day with some more time to explore we’d have liked to have visited. We’re always going to like seaside towns anyway (no, not you, Blackpool) so this is a place worthy of a return trip at some point.