Whitby Abbey

The gaunt ruins of Whitby Abbey stand on the East Cliff above the North Yorkshire coast, on a site of Christian worship dating to the 7th century. The Benedictine abbey that survives in outline today was largely abandoned after Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries, and its skeletal Gothic arches have brooded over the town ever since.

Local tradition tells of the ghost of St Hild, the abbey's founding abbess, appearing at a high window, and of a spectral "barguest" hound haunting the cliffs. The abbey's most famous shadow, though, is literary: Bram Stoker visited Whitby in 1890 and used its atmosphere in Dracula, where the Count comes ashore as a black dog. Fiction and folklore have reinforced each other here for well over a century.

Whitby is an ideal place to watch how landscape, ruin and a single novel can generate a lasting haunting reputation. The documented monastic history and Stoker's own notes let you trace exactly where the record ends and the legend begins.

Whitby Abbey is a scheduled monument in the care of English Heritage, open to visitors with paid admission and a modern visitor centre in the former Cholmley house. Opening hours are seasonal and the exposed clifftop can be very windy — check conditions and times before visiting.

English Heritage runs popular Halloween and illumination events; any evening access is through those official programmes.