Overview: This morning we leave our Newcastle accommodation and head towards York. Our first stop will be in Whitby on the east coast. Whitby was an important ecclesiastical centre during the Anglo-Saxon Age and maintained this importance until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII.
In Whitby we visit the ruins of the abbey built on a cliff above the town. In the Abbey’s interactive museum we can explore 3000 years of English history, from the early Bronze Age, through Medieval times and right up to the occupation of the abbey by the Cholmley family in the 17th century.
The celebrated monastery for both men and women was founded by Hilde, the daughter of an Anglian nobleman, in 657 and became one of the most important centres for Christianity in the Anglo-Saxon world. In 664 the important Synod of Whitby supported the Roman Church over that of the Celtic Christians who had different ideas about how to calculate the date for Easter, among other things. The monastery, and the Synod, were mentioned by the Venerable Bede in his 731 “Ecclesiastical History of the English People”.
The first abbey was abandoned in the 9th century, probably as the result of Viking raids, and a new monastic community was founded in 1078. In the 13th century the monastery church was rebuilt in the Gothic style, and it is the ruins of this church which dominate the site today.
After exploring the Abbey site and museum we have time to visit the town and the Captain Cook museum before continuing our journey towards York. We make one more stop in the town of Pickering to visit the church of St Peter and St Paul.
The Pickering church, which dates from around 1150, has one of England’s most complete series of medieval wall paintings. The paintings were white washed over during the reformation and not uncovered again until the 19th century. The paintings give a vivid idea of what ecclesiastical interiors were actually like during the pre-reformation period.
In the afternoon we check into our York hotel where we stay for the next four nights.
Dinner tonight will be in a local restaurant.