Whitby Sights

The Whitby Dracula Trail

The Dracula trail will take onto the streets of Whitby, which have not altered since Bram Stoker visited the historic town.  The trail begins at the Bram Stoker Memorial Seat, which was carefully placed to give the same view of Whitby, as Bram Stoker would have had when he wrote Whitby into his book.

START FROM - THE DRAM STOKER MEMORIAL SEAT at the south end of Spion Kop, West Cliff.  This Victorian-style seat was erected jointly by Scarborough Borough Council and the Dracula Society in April 1980 to commemorate the link between the author and the town and the inspiration he derived from it while writing Chapters 6-8 of Dracula.  The seats look directly across the harbour to East Cliff - both cliffs provide settings for episodes in the story and from it, you can see almost every feature of the town mentioned in the novel.

Behind the seat and to the right is EAST CRESCENT (originally called The Crescent when this neighbourhood was built in the 1850's to house summer visitors).  In one of the nine small houses in The Crescent the heroine of the story, Mina and her friend Lucy, are spending their summer holidays.  Also, at No. 7, lives the lawyer engaged by Count Dracula to handle the import of his strange cargo from Transylvania -fifty cases of common earth,

CROSS THE TOP OF KHYBER PASS AND TAKE THE STEPS LEADING TO EAST CRESCENT, and then follow the pavement along to the junction with NORTH TERRACE, by the Royal Hotel.  At this end of the cliff, above the West Pier, Mina pauses one night in her search for the sleepwalking Lucy and gazes across towards the churchyard on East Cliff, in a shaft of moonlight she glimpses a familiar white figure with what looked like something dark bending over it.

TAKE THE PATH WHICH LEADS DOWN BELOW THE FLAG-STAFF to the top of the flight of steps leading up from the Pier.  A couple of days after their nocturnal adventure the girls pause after climbing the steps on their way home to tea to admire this sunset over Kettleness from the cliff-edge vantage point nearby.  In the opposite direction, they see what looks like a dark figure sitting on their favourite churchyard seat and two glowing red points of light, which Mina imagines might be reflections from the sinking sun to the left of the clock tower of St. Mary's Church.  Lucy, however, utters as if in a dream the strange words -'His red eyes again',  

FOLLOW THE STEPS DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF KHYBER PASS where it curves to join Pier Road, Having glimpsed Lucy in the moonlight, Mina races down these steps and along the quay in a desperate bid to reach her.  Her route takes her past THE FISH MARKET (since rebuilt and enlarged) and along St Ann's Staith to the Bridge.

FROM THIS POINT A SHORT DETOUR ALONG THE WATERSIDE INTO NEW QUAY ROAD will bring you to WHITBY RAILWAY STATION, formerly the terminus of the old North Eastern Railway line from York and erected in 1847.  Between the station and the harbour there used to be extensive goods sidings and it is from here that Count Dracula leaves Whitby for London (after a stay of ten days) in one of his fifty coffins by the 9.30 goods train to King's Cross.

RETRACE YOUR STEPS and cross the harbour by THE BRIDGE.  This is referred to as The Drawbridge in the book; the name is still used by the Victorians after the old wooden lifting-bridge was demolished in 1835.  It was actually an iron swing-bridge, somewhat narrower in span but otherwise very similar in design to the present one which replaced it in 1909.  Mina has to run across it to the east side of the harbour in order to reach the churchyard.

TURN LEFT AT THE TOP OF BRIDGE STREET INTO CHURCH STREET.  This was the main street of the old Town and looks very much today as it did at the period of Dracula, with quaint yards and passages leading off between the houses and down to the water's edge.  To reach the churchyard Mina has to run the length of the dark, silent street, past the Market Place and the Old Town Hall to the cluster of houses and narrow lanes below the cliff known as TATE HILL.

FORK LEFT DOWN TATE HILL TO TATE HILL PIER, a long stone jetty-projecting into the Lower Harbour and flanked by the curve of Tate Hill Sands.  It is here, on the night of the mysterious and sudden storm, that the Russian schooner Demeter (chartered by Count Dracula) crashes into the pier after being driven through the harbour entrance in the teeth of the gale.  (Bram Stoker based this episode on a real-life incident involving a Russian schooner which occurred in 1885). The captain is found to be dead, the crew missing.  The only sign of the life aboard is an animal looking like an immense dog, which leaps from the bows onto the jetty as the ship strikes and disappears in the darkness among the alleys below the cliff where the churchyard hangs over the laneway to the East Pier.  This is the present Henrietta Street and there is a link here with the thost-dog (a variant of the famous Yorkshire Barguesl) which was once believed to haunt Haggerlythe, as the lane was formerly called.

RETRACE YOUR STEPS TO WHERE Church Street joins Henrietta Street at the foot of CHURCH STAIRS.  There are 199 of these stone steps, with landings at intervals and in her frantic dash to rescue Lucy; Mina has raced up every one of them.  Alongside the stairs is the precipitous stepped road known as CHURCH LANE, which leads to Abbey Plain.  Mina also mentions this is her diary under its old nickname The Donkey Road.

FROM THE TOP STEP OF CHURCH STAIRS you can see the south side of the picturesque and unique parish church of St. Mary's.  Looking past the tower you can see a section of the cliffside path and graveyard - though not very far because of the dip of the ground.  It is from this point that Mina catches sight of Lucy, still on their favourite seat, apparently asleep - though not alone, for there is something, long and black beside her.  Mina's view, however, is cut off for some moments as she continues to run up that path and by the time she reaches the seats Lucy is alone.

CONTINUE UP THAT PATH, AND THEN TURN LEFT along the main cliff-path or bier-baulk, that runs the length of the graveyard.  Note how your view of the section visible from the steps is cut off until you pass the corner of the church tower.  Here, just off the path and in front of the tall Regency Gothic windows of the north transept, must have been the site of the girls' favourite seat, in an angle sheltered from the prevailing west winds and looking across the harbour to their lodging in The Crescent.  It was virtually on top of a flat slab tomb or thruff-steean belonging to one, George Cannon - a suicide, though buried as an accidental death.  No trace of such a grave survives today, but countless graves have disintegrated with weathering and subsidence in St. Mary's Churchyard over the years.  Mina does not feel quite the same about their favourite seat after the night on which she finds Lucy there and takes her home.  Even less so when she recalls that early that morning their friend, the old sailor Mr Swales, who lectured them so cynically on local hypocrisy and local superstition, had been found dead with this neck broken on that very seat. Later it transpires that Count Dracula, apart from assuming the shape of a wolf or bat, as well as human form, had taken refuge for part of his stay in Whitby in the unhallowed grave of the suicide.  As for the seat itself, it must have been one of those comfortable timber and wrought iron affairs, such as Bram Stoker knew. Very similar, in fact, to the seat which has been erected on west Cliff to the memory of the man who created one of the world's great immortal characters and who, in doing so, helped to immortalise the town of Whitby.

A blue plaque has been erected in 6 Royal Crescent, the Whitby Civic Society to commemorate the house where Bram Stoker the author of "Dracula" stayed.

Guided walks are available in the town; please contact the Tourist Information Centre for more details.