Whitby's skyline is dominated by the ruins of St. Hilda's Abbey, high on Whitby's East Cliff. Spreading below Whitby, a maze of alleyways and narrow streets run down to the busy quayside.
From the old town of Whitby, 199 steps lead up to the parish church of St. Mary, whose churchyard on Whitby's East Cliff gave Bram Stoker the inspiration to write his world famous book, Dracula
Whitby is situated on the Yorkshire Coast. To the south lies the coastal villages and resorts of Ravenscar, Scarborough, Filey and Bridlington. All these are well within a short drive from Whitby.
Chalk-faced, black-garbed and festooned with piercings, the world's goths are assembling this weekend in the picture postcard seaport of Whitby.
Once famous for fishing, and the synod of 664 that decided the future of the English church, the Yorkshire town has embraced its more recent calling as the world capital of gothdom.
English Heritage has given the official seal of approval for this year's 17th Whitby Gothic Weekend, altering the floodlights in the town's ruined abbey (central to Bram Stoker Dracula plot) to beam purple and orange for the event.
The abbey has hired falconers to send birds of prey swooping through the ruins before dusk, while actors will demonstrate a bed of nails and conduct a full-scale, twilit Victorian funeral, with black-plumed horses and mutes.
