Family holiday, Sandsend, day 2

Wonderful to wake up to the sound of the sea, wonderful to draw back the curtains on a fine day and see the sea just across the road! We’d had a good journey up tp Yorkshire from the southwest and our cousins from Scotland had had an equally good journey ging south. After a lot of chatting we went for a little ramble, had a delicious dinner  of chicken curry, another ramble and lat orders in the hotel next to the cottage.

Up early on day 2 and out in the sunshine with a cup of tea. After a leisurely breakfast we popped into Whitby, just to take stock of where we were. Whitby is a pretty little fishing town with a log history; maybe it began as a tiny fishing village where an abbey was founded in the seventh century. Hilda was the abbess and the first known and maybe finest English poet Caedmon was a member of the religious community. Whitby was attacked by the Vikings, the fate of many religious sites and other settlements along the east coast. The Vikings travelled further round the coast of the British Isles, of course, but the east was where they first arrived.

The ruins of the abbey dominate the town which is famous for more than its ancient religious heritage. It was an important fishing (particularly herring)  and whaling town and there are impressive but repellent statistics about the number of poor whales which were slaughtered. Captain Cook, the famous navigator, explorer, map-maker and sea-captain, learned his skills and joined the navy. Although there are still fishing boats, and in fact we saw a new one being built, the industry is in decline and tourism supports the economy of the town and region. The shops in Whitby are full of jet, the black lustrous material, millions and millions of years old produced by the compression of rotting monkey puzzle trees under layers of rock. Jet is carved and polished and made into jewelry and other artifacts. Another industry which leaves archeological remains was the alum industry which I wrote about earlier.

We had a little potter about but we will return another day, to explore the tiny little streets which run higgledy-piggledy on either side of the harbour along the River Esk, to climb the 199 steps to the Abbey and maybe, just maybe to indulge ourselves with Whitby’s famous fish and chips!