The Haunting Power of Whitby Abbey

by Nancy Bilyeau

I have a passion for abbey ruins. Part of the reason is that I am writing a thriller trilogy set during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and through my research I've discovered fascinating things about the world inhabited by my protagonist, a Dominican novice, in Dartford. But every ruin has a story to tell, and few are as enthralling as Whitby, in north Yorkshire.

THE FOUNDING: The first religious establishment on the site sprang up during Christianity's infancy in Britain. The founding abbess was Hilda (or Hild), a princess born in 614. She was the great-niece of King Edwin of Northumbria. After her father was poisoned in a court plot, she was brought up in the royal family, baptized by Paulinus, a  Roman missionary.

Inspired by her sister, who became a nun, Hilda chose a religious life and became an abbess. When she was about 40, Hilda became the abbess at Streoneshalh, named after a Roman tower (later known as Whitby). She created a double monastery of Celtic monks and nuns, who studied the scriptures and performed good works. Her wisdom was so respected that the first synod of 664 was held there.

St Hilda

It is said that given a choice between Celtic religious laws and those of Rome, the majority voted for Rome at the synod. The Celtic influence--and the female leadership--faded at Whitby and at other monasteries in the early medieval age.

Hilda died on November 17, 680. She was made a saint and her relics were transferred to Glastonbury by a king.

For centuries, visitors have sworn that they see Hilda when they visit the abbey. Lionel Charlton, in his 1779 History of Whitby, writes:

"At a particular time of the year, in the summer months, at ten or eleven in the forenoon, the sunbeams fall in the inside of the northern part of the choir; and 'tis then that the spectators who stand on the west side of Whitby churchyard, so as just to see the most northerly part of the abbey, imagine that they perceive in one of the highest windows there the resemblance of a woman, arrayed in a shroud. Though we are certain that it is only a reflection caused by the splendor of the sun's beams, yet it is commonly believed to be an appearance of Lady Hilda, in her shroud."

More happily it is said that when sea birds fly by the abbey, they dip their wings in honor of St. Hilda.


THE ORDER:  Hilda's monastery did not last--Viking raids in the late 9th century wiped out the monks and destroyed the structure. For 200 years the place by the sea was desolate.

A soldier serving William the Conqueror named Reinfrid became a monk and discovered the crumbling monastery. William de Percy, the first of the illustrious Northern noble family, gave Reinfrid the land and enough money to create a Benedictine order of monks.

This house of monks thrived  for almost 500 years. This was when the large buildings, church and cloister and library and so forth, were raised, the ruins of which can be seen today.

That way of life came to an end when Henry VIII broke with Rome and destroyed the monasteries. Whitby was surrendered to the will of the king in 1539. It was stripped of its valuables and abandoned.


THE INSPIRATION: Sir Walter Scott in one of his early epic poems, Marmion, tells a romantic story that lends a lingering eeriness to Whitby. With more than his usual looseness with the  facts, Scott conflated St. Hilda and the Benedictine monastery with the Celtic-tinged magic of the Isle of Lindisfarne, in a plot that is ostensibly about the battle of Flodden in 1513 but actually revolves around a lustful English lord.

Lord Marmion has a secret mistress at the "Abbey of St. Hilda", a "dishonest" nun named Constance living at "high Whitby's cloistered pile." After her lover abandons her, for her "broken vows" and "sordid soul," Constance is walled alive at the abbey:

"Yet well the luckless wretch might shriek, well might her paleness terror speak! For there were seen, in that dark wall, Two niches, narrow, deep, and tall; Who enters at such grisly door shall ne'er, I ween, find exit more...Two haggard monks stood motionless; Who, in holding high a blazing torch, Showed the grim entrance of the porch: Reflecting back the smoky beam, The dark-red walls and arches gleam. Hewn stones and cement were displayed, And building tools in order laid."

An illustration from Marmion

Grim indeed.

But Whitby was to find its greatest fame in fiction nearly a century later.

An Irish author and theatrical manager named Bram Stoker decided to set part of his 1897 novel, Dracula, in Whitby. Stoker, who had spent several holidays at the coastal town of Whitby, makes vivid atmospheric use of the abbey ruins, the churchyard, the many steps leading up to it as well as the train station and lighthouses. From the journal of future Dracula victim Mina Murray, who is staying with her friend Lucy Westenra nearby: "Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and is the scene in '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 is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows."

Bram Stoker 

In a key section of the book, the Demeter, a ship that had set sail from the Bulgarian port of Varna, drifted into the harbor of Whitby after a ferocious storm. "A strange schooner" it was, wrote Mina in her journal, "and lashed to the helm was a corpse, with a drooping head which swung horribly to and from with each motion of the ship. No other form could be seen on deck at all." No other crew were found in the boat, just its cargo: "a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould."

The next day, Mina writes:

"Early this morning a large dog, a half-bred mastiff belonging to a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found dead in the roadway opposite its master's yard. It had been fighting and manifestly had had a savage opponent, for its throat was torn away, and its belly was slit open as if with a savage claw." 

Of course, that was only the beginning...

HE PRESERVATION: During World War I, the abbey was damaged again. This time it was two German battlecruisers aiming for a signal post. They blasted away at the abbey for 10 minutes.

Whitby is now in the care of English Heritage, available for visits most of the year. To learn more, go to http://m.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/whitby-abbey/#

***

To read other parts of the series, go to:

Part One: Listening to Blackfriars
Part Two: Furness Abbey
Part Three: Thetford Priory
Part Four: Tintern Abbey

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of The Crown and The Chalice. The Crown was on the shortlist of the Crime Writers Association's Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award.

The Chalice was released in paperback on Feb 13th in the United Kingdom.

To learn more, go to www.nancybilyeau.com

17th Century Garden Design for Women

by Deborah Swift

William Lawson is credited with making gardening popular for women, with his book, A New Orchard and Garden which was printed together with the first horticultural book written solely for women, The Country Housewife's Garden. Beautifully illustrated with charming woodcuts, it tells the 17th century woman everything she needs to know to have a productive and visually attractive garden.

The concept of a "pretty" garden would have been an anathema to most women of the 17th century, as gardens were primarily about producing food and herbs, unless you were very wealthy, in which case the gardening was left to your servants. The 17-century  author of The English Housewife, Gervase Markham, claimed the “complete woman” had

“skill in physic, surgery, cookery, extraction of oils, banqueting stuff, ordering of great feasts, preserving of all sorts of wines…distillations, perfumes, ordering of wool, hemp and flax: making cloth and dying; the knowledge of dairies: office of malting; of oats…of brewing, baking, and all other things belonging to a household.” 

Guess that did not leave much time for planting pretty flowers!

Because kitchen gardens were about supplying the table, and as much ground as possible was covered with edible plants, every garden was different, planted according to the whims of the women of the household. William Lawson's book for the country housewife was designed to be read in conjunction with his New Orchard and Garden, thus giving women access to the idea of garden design, in print, for the very first time.

William Lawson lived from 1553 to1635 and was the vicar of Ormesby, a country parish in Yorkshire. No doubt his gardening passion led him to be so long-lived for an age where most people did not reach fifty. Gardening was a national passion in the 16th and 17th centuries, as more species came from abroad, and an interest in subjects concentrating on the useful qualities and medical virtues of plants became popular.

But the war against garden pests was just as hard then as now - he calls them  the 'whole Army of mischiefs' and says that 'Good things have most enemies' . The enemies in his Yorkshire Garden were apparently deer and moles.

Lawson's garden plan included long walkways, a maze, and even a bowling alley.The illustration below depicts the overall plan.

Its rectangular shape is split into six  sections  over three  terraces, with flights of stairs and paths to go from one to the other. Its design demonstrates the vogue in the 16th and 17th century for symmetry and patterns. In the top left square he planned to have topiary, signified by the man with the sword and a horse. A river runs at the top and bottom of the garden where he says 'you might sit in your mount and angle a peckled trout, sleighty eel or some other daintie fish'.



In The Lady's Slipper, Alice Ibbetson is an obsessive gardener - a pioneer if you like, testing out the knowledge handed down from her father who was a plantsman much like William Lawson. She finds relaxation in communing with nature. Her maid, Ella, featured in The Gilded Lily, would try to avoid garden work if at all possible. Her sights are set on becoming a fine lady, just like Alice Ibbetson, and leaving manual labour behind for good.

More information from my blogs
www.deborahswift.blogspot.com
www.royaltyfreefictionary.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading!