The wonder of Whitby

The 199 steps up to the ruins of Whitby Abbey are a pilgrimage; they always have been. And any good pilgrimage takes effort. Count Dracula (also acquainted with the north Yorkshire town) cheated — he climbed the steps in the guise of a black hound. These days, with its new £1.6 million museum and visitor centre, our vampire friend would find a ground-floor café and gift shop. Knowing English Heritage, there is probably a bowl of water for dogs, which would have kept the Count happy.

Whitby is a surprise, with a history that puts it at the heart of Britain’s spiritual and literary life. It’s also a vibrant fishing port, somewhere you can pick up a Whitby smoky — smoked herrings — made in a backstreet smokehouse. And the local jet trade still flourishes. But with more than 150,000 visitors a year to the old abbey, its new museum will certainly have pulling power.

Everyone acknowledges that Whitby Abbey is magical. But that’s the easy part. How can it tell a story that includes saints, vampires and an early European controversy with uncanny echoes of Brexit?

To understand Whitby, we need to go back to the early 7th century, whose power struggles would have given Game of Thrones a run for its money. Into that turmoil came Hilda, born into the royal household, who by the age of 13 had seen her father killed by poisoning while in exile.

Hilda renounced all the royal trappings, became a nun and set up a monastery in Whitby. Like many Celtic monasteries, it became a centre for good works, education, singing and storytelling, and men and women worshipped together.

But there were ructions in the church — not least about the date of Easter. While one faction of Christians was still in Lent, another had celebrated Easter.