Whitby

Museum of mostly Victorian curios: natural history, local shipping and so on. It incorporates an art gallery.

The first abbey was founded in 657 AD, one of its monks being Caedmon, England's earliest known poet. In 664 the Synod of Whitby codified many religious practices such as the date of Easter, bringing Celtic Christianity in line with Rome. The abbey was wrecked by Viking raids but revived and rebuilt from the 13th century, becoming a great Benedictine centre. It fell again in the Dissolution under Henry VIII; the ruin became government-owned in 1920. It's still an imposing shell, visited by Dracula (according to Bram Stoker) in the guise of a large black dog. In 1914 it was further damaged by shelling from two German battlecruisers.

Captain James Cook was born in 1728 at Marton, now part of Middlesbrough. In 1747/8 he came to Whitby and met the local ship-owners whose house is now this museum. He learnt his seafaring on coastal merchant ships then joined the Royal Navy in the run-up to the Seven Years' War; his shore life thereafter was in London. In 1779 he was killed in a brawl with the native inhabitants of Hawaii.

Display of the local lifeboat service, which used this double boathouse 1895–1957. The modern lifeboat station is on the opposite river bank on Church St, and can also be visited M-F.