WHITBY. 



employed in the manufafture were prepared from kelp, or 

 fea-weed, burnt on the (here : but fince that period kelp 

 has been gradually fuperfeded by black-a(hes, made from 

 the refufe of foap-boilers' lees. The average annual quan- 

 tity of alum manufaftured in the Whitby diftrid, for the 

 laft twelve years, was 2840 tons; but in 1816 the quan- 

 tity was 3155 tons. Little alum is now exported, nearly 

 the whole being fent to London. Tbe number of perfons, 

 including artificers and boys, belonging to the works, is 

 about 600. (See Alum.) Thm feams of coal have, for 

 upwards of feventy years, been wrought in the environs of 

 Whitby, but of a very inferior quality, and ufed only m 

 the interior parts of the country. 



Whitby contains no pubhc building of note. The town- 

 hall, erefted by the late Mr. Cholmley, is a heavy pile of 

 the Tufcan order. The poor-houfe, extenfive, and judi- 

 cioufly managed, affords a comfortable refuge for the dif- 

 treffed, and tends to diminifli the heavy burthen of the 

 pari(h-rates. A difpenfary, liberally fupported, for diftri- 

 buting advice and medicines to the poor, was eUablifhed in 

 1780. The parifh-church (lands near the top of a hill, 

 on the eaft fide of the town, a little to the northward of 

 the ruins of the abbey, acceffible from the bottom by an 

 inconvenient afcent of 190 ftone fteps. The architefture 

 of the edifice was originally what is abfurdly ftyled Gothic ; 

 but it has gone through fo many alterations, that little of 

 its ancient appearance now remains. The churcii-yard is 

 excefiively crowded with grave- ftones ; but the fea-air of 

 Whitby is fo deftruftive of ftones, that infcriptions are 

 foon effaced. For the ufe of the numerous inhabitants, a 

 fpacious chapel of eafe has been erefted in the lower part 

 of the town ; and for the country part of the parilh, which 

 is of great extent, three others have been built. That 

 at Sleights, four miles from the town, is a handfome edifice. 

 Roman Cathohcs, Quakers, and various other claffes of 

 difTenters, have their refpeftive places of worfhip in the 

 town. According to the parliamentary returns of 181 1, 

 the houfes of this town were 1393, and the inhabitants 

 6969: but in the fpriiig of 18 16, the population was 

 found, by a careful inquiry, to have increafed to 10,203. 

 The inhabitants of the country part of the pari(h were then 

 eftimated at 1477 perfons. 



The town of Whitby is clofe, irregular, and unpleafant ; 

 but the environs are romantic and beautiful. Thefe are 

 embellifhed with the country-refidences of the opulent in- 

 habitants, moftly erefted on commanding fituations : the 

 moft interefting objeft of all, however, is the celebrated 

 Abbey, of great antiquity, having been originally founded 

 in the year 655. Before the fanguinary but decifive battle 

 of Leeds, on the banks of the Oire, in which he utterly 

 overthrew and flew his invading foe, Penda, king of the 

 Mercians, Ofwy, king of the Northumbrians, vowed, if 

 fuccefsful, to ereft and endow a monaftery, and to confe- 

 crate to the fervice of rehgion in it his daughter ^Ifleda, 

 then fcarcely a year old. In difcharge of this engagement, 

 he founded the monaftery of Streonefhalh, of the Benedic- 

 tine order ; with this pecuharity, that it was to contain 

 both monks and nuns, all under the government of St. 

 Hilda, the firft abbefs. It is, neverthelefs, probable, that 

 the introduftion of the monks, by which the inilitution 

 became in all refpe&s fimilar to that of the celebrated abbey 

 of Fontevraud, in the weft of France, did not take place 

 till feveral years after its eftabhftiment. The monaftery 

 was began in 657, and dedicated to St. Peter ; but fueh 

 was the veneration entertained for St. Hilda, that it was 

 always called by her name, and to her was the foundation 

 ufually afcribed. While Hilda was abbefs, the fynod of 



Whitby was held in 664, in which, notwithftanding her 

 oppofition, ftrengthened by that of Colman, the feftival of 

 Eafter was direfted to be celebrated at the time adopted by 

 the fovereign pontiff, inftead of that which had been in 

 general obfervance in Britain. Dying in 680, Hilda's place 

 as abbefs was filled by Ofwy's daughter, iElfleda. Till 

 the year 867, the abbey continued to profper ; but it was 

 then overthrown by the fons of Lodbrog the Dane. In 

 this ftate it remained until after the Norman Conqueft : the 

 lands in the neighbourhood were granted to Hugh, the firft 

 earl of Chefter, from whom they pafled to WiUiam de 

 Percy, anceftor of the Percys of Northumberland. By him 

 the monaftery was reftored from its ruins under a prior ; 

 but in the reign of Henry I. it was again raifed to the rank 

 of an abbey. Although pillaged by a Norwegian fleet in 

 the time of abbot Richard, who died in 1175, its revenues 

 at the diflblution, under Henry VIII., amounted to 505/. 

 ^s. id. At this epoch, the fcite and lands, partly by grant 

 and partly by purchafe, became the property of fir Richard 

 Cholmley, a defcendant of the family of Cholmondeley, in 

 Chefhire. 



Of Whitby-abbey, the ruins of the church alone remain ; 

 but by thefe, which are ftill confiderable and confpicuoufly 

 pifturefque, it appears to have been a magnificent ftrufture. 

 Tiie exterior length of the church, which is built in the 

 ufual form of a crofs, is 310 feet ; the breadth at the weft 

 end, including the buttrefl'es, is 84 feet ; the length of the 

 crofs 153 feet. The church probably occupies the fcite of 

 the Saxon building erefted before the Conqueft ; but of it, 

 nor even of the edifice conftrufted immediately after the 

 revival of the monaftery, no veftige now remains. The pre- 

 fent ftrufture is of different ages, and exhibits different 

 ttyles of architefture. The eaftern part, or choir, evidently 

 the oldeft, was probably built by Richard de Burgh, 

 who was abbot from 1148 to 1 175, and who rebuilt the 

 chapter-houfe. The lower part of the tower, and moft of 

 the pillars, which are all cluftered, were perhaps erefted at 

 the fame time : but the north tranfept and the upper part 

 of the tower are of a later date. The ornaments of the 

 windows in thofe parts, the beautiful range of niches on the 

 walls within, the tracery of the circular vv'indow in the north 

 end, &c. foem to indicate the work of the clofe of the 1 3th 

 or the beginning of the 14th century. The weft front is the 

 lateft part of the whole, probably of the time of Edward III., 

 or in the end of the 14th century. 



The alum-rocks in the vicinity of Whitby are not lefs 

 curious than valuable, from the variety of petrified fub- 

 ftances they contain. Befides the ufual petrifaftions of 

 fhells and other marine bodies, parts of the human fkeleton 

 have been occafionally difcovered. In the early part of the 

 lart century. Dr. Woodward, the celebrated naturalift, dug 

 up on the fear, or cliff, on the eaft fide of the harbour, the 

 petrified arm and hand of a man, having all the bones and 

 joints very vlfible. About 1743 was found, in the alum- 

 rock, the complete flceleton of a man ; but it was broken 

 to pieces by taking from the bed. A fimilar difcovery is 

 faid to have been made about nine years ago ; but the 

 fkeleton was broken without any fcientific perfon having 

 examined it. In 1758, the bones of a crocodile, as they 

 were imagined to be, were drawn from the rock, and tranf- 

 mitted to the Royal Society, by whom an account of them 

 was pubhfhed in the 50th volume of the Philofophical 

 Tranfaftions. About tour years afterwards, the fkeleton 

 of a horfe was found in the alum-works at Salt-wick, thirty 

 yards under the furface. Ammonites, or cornua-aramonis, 

 vulgarly called fnake-ftones, abound, with other teftaceous 

 petrifaftions, in the aluminous fchiftus in the vicinity of 



Whitby ; 



