It is a matter of great regret that such a priceless example of English architectural workmanship as this Abbey of St Hilda should be allowed to fall away before the nation’s eyes. Being in such an exposed position, on the very brink of a high cliff, the ruins will rapidly decay, and we have forebodings that before the end of this 20th century there may be very little of importance left of this building--so exceptionally invested with national, religious and legendary interest.
In fulfilment of the vow made before the battle of Winwidfield (655) by Oswy, King of Northumbria--that if victorious he would dedicate his daughter, Ethelfleda, to perpetual virginity, and would give twelve of his manor houses to be converted into monasteries--a religious house was founded at Streanaeshalch and placed under the charge of Hilda, Abbess of Hartlepool, to whom also was intrusted the child Ethelfleda. Under Hilda’s rule the famous Synod was held, to settle such vexed questions as the canonical date of Easter, and of the tonsure. Both the abbey and the town of Whitby were ruthlessly destroyed by the Danes in 787, and lay in ruins until 1067, when the restoration of the building was begun by a humble monk from Evesham, named Reinfrid. Formerly a soldier in the army of William the Conqueror, Reinfrid had been known as such by William de Percy, Lord of Whitby, who willingly granted to him and to his fraternity the site of the abbey. The history of the abbey in its early days tells of the usual vicissitudes, although early in the 12th century the community there prospered greatly under the government of Abbot William de Percy, nephew of the founder. Henry I. granted Whitby the same ecclesiastical privileges as those attached to the minsters of Ripon and Beverley. When in 1540 the last abbot, Henry Davell, surrendered to the king’s commissioners, there were eighteen monks in residence.
Turning from the historical to the legendary interest one finds a perfect wealth of story. “The Hermit of Eskdale,” “St Hilda’s Worms,” “Whitby Abbey Bells,” etc. These and other legends are still common talk among the fisher-folk of the town, to some of whom it is given, they tell us, to see at times the wraith of St Hilda at one of the highest windows of the ruins arrayed in a shroud, and to hear the abbey bells rung by invisible hands under the water, where they remain since they sank with the ship which was to take them to London after the dismantling of the abbey. The poetical and beautiful story of the divine vision and inspiration of Caedmon is one known to all lovers of English literature. Sir Walter Scott in the familiar stanzas of _Marmion_ beginning, “Then Whitby’s nuns exulting told,” speaks of one of the many miracles by which St Hilda’s sanctity attested itself. Sea fowl in full flight are said to have paused and drooped when they reached the abbey, and to have fallen to the ground in attempting to fly over it; while the snakes, which invested the rocks, and spoken of in legend as St Hilda’s worms, were, in answer to the prayers of the holy abbess, turned to stones, supposed to be the ammonites so frequently found embedded in the cliffs.