Whitby - Blog Posts
Reblogging because this is so helpful especially as someone who has incredible difficulty imagining maps and how places connect.
Because the geography of Whitby is handy to know later on, and I have no ability to visualize things, I'm going to post a little map (very low quality, I'm bad at this) of present-day Whitby with some of the places Mina mentions marked on it.
The Crescent (centre left), a fancy part of Whitby where Lucy is staying.
Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in which they have rooms.
2. The ruins of Whitby Abbey, up on the east cliff (lower right).
Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of “Marmion” where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there’s a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows.
3. The graveyard of St. Mary's Church with the view over the cliffs and harbour that Mina likes (lower right).
Between [Whitby Abbey] and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been destroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches out over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside them, through the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come and sit here very often myself and work.
4. Whitby harbour, with the two lighthouses circled.
The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it, in the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall runs along aside of it. On the near side, the sea-wall makes an elbow crooked inversely, and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens.
It is nice at high water; but when the tide it out it shoals away to nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on this side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge of which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse.
The reef isn't in the photo above, but if you go to Google Maps you can see it angling off to the northwest.
5. The steps down from the graveyard to the town (lower right).
He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, down the steps. The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead from the town up to the church, there are hundreds of them – I do not know how many – and they wind up in a delicate curve; the slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they must have originally had something to do with the abbey.
One other feature of the town Mina mentions is the viaduct, which isn't in the map above because it's far south of the rest.