The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-03
WHITBY ABBEY

flom the London Times.
 The news that the picturesque and ven eroble ruins of Whitby Abbey have been damaged by shells from German cruisers will cause a feeling of anger, as deep in purpose as in resentment, to pass through the English people. The ruins stood bat tered by the storms of many generations, but still unconquered, perched high above the huddled beauty of the old part of the town near the edge of the cliff and the right bank of the Esk The destruction can hardly have been accidental: they stand almost alone, with the old quaint parish church of St. Mary between them and the town, at the head of precip- itous flight of 199 steps. They were not only landmark of beauty in themselves, overlooking the sea and commanding a view of singular loveliness and extent up the heather-clad valley of the Esk but few places In the kingdom are so inti- mately associated with our beginnings as nation as the site on which they stood.
 The abbey stands on the same site as was once occupied by the monastery of Streonshalh. This was established. ac- cording to Bede, in 657, when Hilda be- came abbess building her monastery on ground granted by King Oswy, in pur- suance of his VOW at the battle of Win widfield.
 It was during the reign of IIilda that the great synod of Whitby was held in 664, by which the ,momentous question was decided whether or no England should separate herself from the Church of Rome Many will remember how King Oswy, hearing that St. Peter had the keys to heaven, gave his decision to obey St. Peter, Test when I come to the gate of heaven there be none to open to me-" But, greater still, it was during the reign of Hilda that Whitby became the cradle of English poetry It was here that the vision appeared to Caedmon, the earliest Christian poet of England who had left the festive company because ne knew himself unable to comply with the request for song from each guest, and bade. him sing "the beginning of created things"
 The monastery was destroyed by the Danes about S6S. and for two centuries lay in ruin. But after the Norman con- quest the deserted shrines of Northum- bria received attention, and though the refoundation of Whitby Abbey is in- volved in great obscurity through the in- constituencies of the old records, 1t seems probable that. according to Canon At kinson, a resuscitated ,priory was estab- lished on the old site about 107S, and con- verted into an influential abbey about 11O9. It was surrendered by the last abbot on December A. 1540, so that the Germans were but two days late in an anniver- sary of destruction.
 The ruins were in wonderful harmony with their surroundings Bleak and brown. and fretted, they stood between the rolling ridges of somber moor and the sea.
 The wasting sea breeze keen
 Had worn the pillars carving quaint,
 And moldered in his niche the saint
 They consisted of little more than the chancel, north transept and part of the nave of the abbey church; the great cen tral tower fell in fierce gale in 1S30. The north aisle of the chancel was still much of its vaulting; in the north tran sept which is slightly later in date and the most beautiful portion of the church, the exquisite carving of the capitals of the window shaft could still be seen. But Whitby Abbey was endeared to us less for the details which remained than for the grandeur 1t imparted to an already lovely scene; it was reverenced less for its ruined walls than for its unique as- sociations with the greatness of our early