Whitby Sights

THE EARLY MONASTERY

Comparatively little is known of the precise form of the early Anglo-Saxon monasteries and such information as is available has to be gathered from manuscript sources rather than from surviving or excavated remains. This renders the discoveries at Whitby all the more important, for although a few entirely Celtic establishments of a like nature have been partly excavated, this at Whitby is one of the very few Saxon examples to have been explored, even in part. It is impossible yet to say how typical it was, nor how representative the parts uncovered are of the whole, nor how far they represent a compromise between the Celtic disposition and the Roman or Benedictine.

It may be accepted that in the absence of any form of more or less natural enclosure, such as would be provided by a promontory, Saxon monasteries were provided with an artificial enclosure such as still exists- in part at lona and is known to have existed at Abingdon. Within the enclosure stood the church or churches of the monastery. Three was not an unusual number of churches and this number might be exceeded. St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, had three, set nearly in line from west to east. Monkwearmouth and Malmesbury also had three, and St Wilfred built two or more at Hex-ham. These churches were commonly of comparatively small size and were often provided with side-chapels, called porticus, to serve as places for burial or prayer or as the necessary adjuncts for the services of the church. What may have been the division between the sexes in the major church of a double monastery, such as Whitby, is not known but it is on record that the church at Kildare, which was also a double monastery, was divided longitudinally, the men being to the south and the women to the north of the central partition.

Surrounding the church or churches, according to the Celtic practice, stood the cells of the inmates and one or two larger buildings including perhaps a refectory, a school-house and a guest-house. We do not know of any standard arrangement for these, but there is documentary as well as archaeological evidence that Whitby retained this kind of layout until the Danes destroyed it. The cartulary of Whitby gives the following account of the site when the later monastery was founded: ' William de Percy gave them the ancient monastery of St Peter, the Apostle, with two carucates of land in Priestby in perpetual alms. There were at that time, in the same place, as aged countrymen have informed us, monasteria or oratories to nearly the number of forty, whereof the walls and altars, empty and roofless, had survived the destruction of the pirate-host.' Bede in giving an account of a vision of Adamnan, a monk of Coldingham, throws some light on the, no doubt similar, arrangements there. The visitant addressing Adamnan says: 'I have been through all this monastery in order and have looked at every cell and bed, and have found none except yourself taking thought for the health of their souls. . . . For the little houses (domunculae) made for prayer or reading, are now turned into places for wrangling, drinking and chattering.' Even at Abingdon, in the south, the early monastery consisted of a church with an apse at each end, twelve cells each with an oratory, inhabited by as many monks, eating, drinking and sleeping there, and the whole surrounded by a wall. At Hackness, on the other hand, reference is made to the dormitory of the sisters as though this had been a separate building in which the sisters slept together. There is, finally, a reference in Bede's account of Caedmon of a building at Whitby set apart for those approaching death, in fact, something in the nature of an infirmary.

Few of the Celtic monasteries examined in the British Isles seem to provide immediate parallels with those at Whitby, but the remains on Eileach an Naoimh, in the Firth of Lorn, Argyll, Scotland, bear some relationships with those at Whitby and the place has claims to contemporaneity with St Columba's lona. In the so-called southern graveyard there are two cells or buildings agreeing very nearly in size with those at Whitby and others might well be revealed by excavation.

At Whitby it would appear probable that the church or churches of the early monastery stood on some part of the site of the existing ruin and its late eleventh-century predecessor. The principal church was dedicated to St Peter and in an account of the burial of King Edwin, whose body was recovered from the battlefield of Hatfield, he is said to have been entombed on the south of St Peter's altar and to the east of St Gregory's altar. In 1924 and 1925 a portion of the site of the early monastery lying mostly to the north of the existing church, was excavated by the Office of Works. None of this is now visible on the ground, but the remains were carefully planned and the main features are recorded on the fold-out plan inside the back cover. The examination lacked the benefit of modern archaeological method and was complicated by the existence over part of the area excavated of the medieval lay cemetery as well as later intrusive elements which have combined to disturb the clarity of the early remains. As will be seen from the plan, a curved area of rubble (see A on the plan) bounded the site towards the north east. This was first thought to be a roadway. It seems more likely, however, that it formed the base of the enclosing wall or bank round the whole monastic site (the vallum monasterii). This probably presented a face of laid stone on the exterior, with a bank of earth on the exterior.

Plan of the Abbey

Inside this supposed enclosure the whole site was covered with the debris of building within which separate structures could not always be identified. Six small dwellings or cells (B) were, however, clearly defined together with a larger building (C), separated from the rest by a roadway (not marked on the plan) which forked at its eastern end. That these cells or dwellings belonged to that part of the establishment used by the nuns or their lay female attendants seems probable from the discovery of loom-weights and small toilet objects within or about them. 

The cells were some 15 to 20ft (4.6 to 6m) long and 10 to 12ft (3 to 3.6m) wide and some of them retained traces of open hearths. The site further provided evidence of an elaborate system of rain-water drainage in rough stone-built channels one of which seems to have flanked much of the south side of the main roadway. Wells were fairly numerous, though their date was not always determinate. To the north of the roadway and standing north and south was a clearly defined rectangular building (C) some 47ft (14m) long by 18ft (5.5m) wide. It has been suggested that this was the common refectory but it might equally well have been the nuns' dormitory, as at Hackness, or the school-house, such as has been demonstrated at Nen-drum in County Down. Immediately to the north-east of this building two cross-bases were found. It may be noted in conclusion that a length oi early walling was found under the outer parlour, to the south of the medieval nave, indicating that the early monastery extended over a yet undetermined area in this direction.

During the excavations a considerable number of worked and inscribed stones were brought to light, some of which are now stored in the shed on the site. All of them can be assigned to the period of the early monastery 657-867, and those with inscriptions are of particular interest. Most important of these is part of the slab commemorating almost certainly Abbess Elfled, daughter of King Oswy, who died Abbess of Whitby in 713-14; the inscription refers to her dedication as an infant and has been restored as follows: [x AEL] FLEAEDA ....] [QVAEJ AB INFANT [IA].....I [cONSILLA] TRIXQVE VA[S]..... A second fragment bears the name CVNIBVRGA or CYNEBVRGA, possibly, or indeed probably, the widow of King Oswald, as both this and the previous inscription are in the form oftituli set up as panels on the walls of the church and appropriate only to persons of high rank or eminence. A third fragment, this time of a cross-head, bears the name ABBAE. Other inscriptions are more fragmentary. The uninscribed stones include a large number of fragments of cross-heads and shafts from the monastery or cemetery, generally of simple and unenriched form, but one bearing panels of interlacement and one with the narrow side enriched with diaper. Of greater interest is a fragment with part of an incised cross on one face; the stone was subsequently re-used and has upon the reverse side a deeply cut panel with a pelletted border and part of the well-cut figure of a beast of the so-called Anglian type.

Small objects of metal-work, bone and glass were found in some quantity together with loom-weights, pottery and other finds. The most spectacular of these were perhaps the three gilt bronze or copper plaques from book-covers with intersecting cross-head forms and elaborate decorative interlace. There is, furthermore, a small glass setting with a youthful bust, perhaps of Merovingian origin. Objects of jet were curiously uncommon. Most of these objects with some of the carved and inscribed stones are now in the British Museum.

ELEVENTH CENTURY CHURCH

The first church built after the refoundation of the abbey was probably erected under Serlo de Percy the prior and William de Percy the first abbot of the Benedictine house. The foundations of the great part of the east end and the transept have been uncovered under the western part of the later presbytery and under the later transept. The choir was set axially with the later nave and not with the later presbytery. The east end of the late eleventh-century church had a central apse flanked by smaller apses two bays to the west, terminating the side-aisles of the presbytery. There was, furthermore, a single apsidal chapel projecting to the east of each arm of the transept which had a bay less projecting from the central tower than the later transept.

This so-called Benedictine plan is typical of the great majority of the eleventh-century abbey churches in Lower Normandy, while in England it is the common form of more than half the eleventh-century monastic churches of which the plan is known. It is represented also in Yorkshire in the contemporary churches of St Mary's Abbey, York, and St German's Abbey, Selby, both of which have been recovered by excavation. The excavations at Whitby further recovered the plan of a narrow passage adjoining the south transept and lying between it and the chapter house. This passage was incorporated in the enlarged transept of the thirteenth-century church. Adjoining the western part of the nave the foundations of the outer parlour have been uncovered and the axial line of this chamber differs markedly from that of the existing nave. What was the cause of this deviation does not at present appear, but the west range may well have been laid out before the Romanesque nave was begun.

THE LATER CHURCH

There is no direct documentary evidence for the dates of the rebuilding of the abbey church, which must in consequence be assessed on architectural evidence only. It would seem that the general rebuilding was begun at the east end about 1220. The setting-out was faulty, which led to the marked deviation to the north of the axis of the presbytery from that of the nave. There is little or no difference in date apparent throughout the eastern arm of the church but the north transept, which followed in sequence, is perhaps twenty years later, and with this campaign of building went the south transept, the first three bays of the nave and the central tower. The rebuilding of the remainder of the nave was not undertaken till the fourteenth century and the great west window was a work of the fifteenth century. Samuel Buck's view of the church (1711) shows that the clerestory of the nave was also much altered or rebuilt in the fifteenth century.

The presbytery still stands largely intact except for the west part of the south wall and the whole of the south aisle. It is all of about 1220 and is typical of the grand east ends, cut flush across the aisles, without any projecting arms. That replaced the Romanesque termination of many monastic churches in the thirteenth century, not least in Yorkshire, and even, at Rievaulx, in a Cistercian church, where it was uncanonical. At Whitby the buildings is of seven bays, with triple shafts between the bays carried up to the top of the clerestory and never supporting anything except the main tie-beams of a timber roof. The piers of the two main arcades have grouped shafts and richly moulded arches. The triforium above has now two pointed arches in each bay enclosed under a half-round main arch with 'dog-tooth' ornament; the responds and central pier are shafted; these arches were again subdivided and had secondary free-standing piers, now gone, supporting the smaller arches, with quatrefoils in the spandrels; these arches opened into a roof passage or tribune above the aisle vault. The clerestory has a single-pointed window in each bay, flanked on the inside by pairs of wall-arches with quatrefoiled panels above in one bay on the north side. The main east wall stands intact to the gable-top which has octagonal turrets at the sides, with slatted angles and gabled buttresses below; the wall has three tiers of lancet windows with external shafts between the three windows of the lower and middle tiers. The windows of the middle tier have dog-tooth ornament and the middle window has the remains of an embattled transom and mullion inserted in the fifteenth century. The gable has three graduated lancet windows flanked by blind wall-arches on the outside face, making five pointed and two trefoiled arches, seven in all. The presbytery at Whitby occupies an important and perhaps an initial place in the remarkable epidemic of building activity which took place in Yorkshire in the early and middle parts of the thirteenth century. As it was never intended to have a stone vault, Whitby, to that extent, falls short of the somewhat later presbyteries of Rievaulx Abbey, begun about 1230, and Beverley Minster, begun in 1232, but it is none the less an admirably proportioned and well-executed design. To the same group of buildings belong the eastern parts of Fountains Abbe} (1210-40), the transepts of York Minster (1242 and 1255) and the presbytery of Kirkham Priory (finished about 1250).

The north aisle is largely intact and has a single lancet window with side-shafts in the east wall and in each bay of the north wall. The ribbed stone vault survives except in part of the fourth bay from the east; the vault springs from shafts against the outer wall, standing on corbels at the level oi the window-sills. The outer wall of the south aisle has gone, but one jamt of the east window remains, together with some of the northern springers of the stone vault, which was similar to that of the north aisle. Adjoining the third bay of the aisle arc the foundations of the former sacristy, an addition of somewhat later in the thirteenth century. The crossing and central tower are now represented mainly by the north-east piers, which is standing to a point just below the springing of the former tower arches and has grouped shafts with keeled shafts towards the cardinal points. The bases of the other three piers also survive. Engravings of the church, before the tower fell in 1830, show that there was one window in each face below the weatherings of the high-pitched roofs of the rest of the church and that the belfry-stage above had no fewer than three windows in each face, all of about the middle of the thirteenth century. The tower was finished with an embattled parapet and had a tall weather-vane on the north-west angle.

The north transept still stands largely to its full height, with the aisle to the east of it, and is generally distinguished by a freer use of foliage-carving. Internally it has a wall-arcade of moulded and trefoiled arches along its north and west walls with foliage-capitals to the shafts and quatrefoils in the spandrels. The arcade of three bays, opening into the east aisle, is generally similar to that of the presbytery and the triforium and clerestory above were also generally similar to the same features there; but in the transept both the upper storeys are much more ruined. The north front has three tiers of lancet windows, three in each tier and generally similar to those of the east front, except that the shafts have foliage-capitals and the lancet windows of the top tier are of one height and are enclosed in an internal wall-arch. In the gable is a three-sided traceried window. The buttresses of the north front are more elaborate than those of the eastern arm of the church and have panelled faces and niches at the base of the main buttresses. The west wall of the transept has wall-shafts between the bays and a pair of lancet windows in both the two northern bays; these have foliage-capitals and dog-tooth ornament. In the south bay is the respond and springing of the arch into the north aisle of the nave. The rest of the arch has fallen and the upper part of the wall is much ruined. Nearly all of the vaulting of the eastern aisle of the transept has fallen but it was similar to that in the presbytery. The outer wall has a pair of lancet windows in the middle bay and a single lancet window in the south bay and in the north wall. On the piers are traces of the fixing of former timber screen-work and there is a large cupboard recess in the north wall. On the first column from the north of the main arcade is a much-weathered incised inscription of late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century date which is thought to read as follows, the words in brackets being now lost: JOHANNES DE BRVMTO QVONDAM FAMVLVS [DEI, IN HOC ALTARI FVNDAVIT SERVICI] VM IN PERPETVVM IN HONOREM BEATE MARIE.

The south transept, which largely collapsed in 1736, has now almost entirely disappeared except for the foundations, some bases and one pier of the main east arcade. When the transept was rebuilt about 1230-40 it was extended south over the passage adjoining the shorter transept of the Norman church. Against its southern end stood the chapter house and above this was a large fourteenth- or fifteenth-century window as shown in an early engraving. The single surviving pier of the arcade is similar to those in the presbytery.

The nave, which fell in 1762, is now represented only by an appreciable portion of the outer wall of the north aisle, by a reconstructed pier, by the stumps of the other piers and by the now scanty remains of the west front. The first three bays of the aisle wall belong to the middle of the thirteenth century and have each a lancet window with banded internal shafts. Dividing the bays are grouped vaulting-shafts on which rest the springers of the former ribbed vault. The rest of the wall to the west dates from the first quarter of the fourteenth century; the fourth and fifth bays of the aisle have each a window of four trefoiled lights with shafted splays and mullions and admirable tracery of the type known as Kentish; windows, no doubt similar, further to the west have been largely destroyed, but in the sixth bay is a doorway of the same period with a moulded and trefoiled head opening into a former vaulted porch of which only part of the side walls survive. The western part of the aisle had a ribbed stone vault of which the vaulting-shafts and springers in part remain. The fourth pier from the east of the main arcade has been in part reconstructed and bears the inscription L. SMELT ARM. EREXIT A.D. 1790. The west responds of both arcades survive against the west front; they have grouped shafts, with moulded bases and capitals. The west front is substantially of the beginning of the fourteenth century with later alterations. The main west doorway had originally a central pier dividing its two trefoil-headed openings and have a quatrefoil above; it is flanked internally by smaller wall-arches with blind tracery. The general appearance of the front before much of it fell in 1794 can be seen from the Gibson aquatint of 1789 (page 5). The great fifteenth-century window was perhaps of eight transomed lights; remains of the fourteenth-century wall-passage at its base may still be seen. The inserted fifteenth-century window in the west wall of the aisle still in part survives and above it is a diagonal window enclosing four quatrefoils. The lower part of the front has trefoil-headed wall-arcading.

THE MONASTIC BUILDINGS

The domestic buildings of the monastery stood to the south of the church but of those only the portions immediately adjoining the church have been excavated. The cloister lay to the south of the nave and was some 88ft (27m) from east to west. This was the general living-room of the monks and in the later middle ages at Whitby the windows opening on to the garth were glazed. Leland has preserved a note of these which is worth repeating if only as a curiosity. The passage occurs in a life of St Hilda and runs as follows: 'A stained-glass picture which is in the Cloister of Stroncshale shows the Scots, who live beyond the bounds of the English, and were cannibals, in the days of William the bastard; this impropriety was punished by William with the sword.' The eastern side of the eastern processional doorway from the cloister to the church is still standing; it is a work of about 1240 with shaft-bases, foliage-capitals and dog-tooth ornament. Adjoining it in the east wall of the cloister is a large recess, no doubt a book cupboard, and partly under the former night-stairs to the dormitory which led up from the south transept. Against the end of the south transept stood the chapter house, part of which is shown standing in Buck's view of 1711. It is recorded to have been rebuilt by Abbot Richard of Peterborough, who in 1175 was buried there beside his predecessor William. Beyond it to the south stood various rooms forming the lower storey of the monks' dormitory. The refectory no doubt occupied the south side of the cloister and the cellarer's range the west side, but of these nothing remains except part of the passage-way or outer parlour which adjoined the church at the north end of the western range. The base of its western doorway would appear to be of late twelfth-century date.

No trace remains of the abbey gatehouse, unless it is represented by the modern gatehouse which gives access to the Abbey House. In the Abbey- plain, before the gatehouse, stands a fourteenth-century cross-shaft on six steps; the panelled shaft with its capital is intact but the cross-head has been mutilated.

The lay cemetery in the Middle Ages lay to the north of the church and north of the nave a group of tombs and tomb-slabs is exposed to view; one of these has head- and foot-stones cut with wheel-crosses.

Re-erected against the north wall of the enclosure are three and a half bays of moulded arches, with vaulting-shafts between them and parts of the storey above. These are the remains of the nave arcades which were found fallen but complete, during the excavation.