Whitby is a little town on the North East coast of England. It has been settled since the Dark Ages when there was an Abbey founded on the headland by King Oswy of Northumbria (in thanks for defeating the ever so troublesome Penda of Mercia). This abbey became very important and was the scene of the synod in 644 that settled once and for all whether Northumbria would follow the Celtic Christian way or the Roman - one of the main disputes being the date of Easter (as it was with the schism between the Roman and Orthodox Church in South-Eastern Europe). There has continued to be some form of abbey/holy place on Whitby's headland from then until the dissolution of the Abbeys by Henry VIII, and the ruins that are visible now are medieval as no trace of the old Celtic style abbey exists above ground.

Whitby is also famous for being the home of Captain James Cook (he was apprenticed there) and the place where the Endeavour and Resolution were built to later sail  around the world. It is also the place where an Irishman re-wrote the vampire legend giving us the most famous vampire of all time. I bet Bram Stoker wishes he could still get royalties for Dracula in the afterlife.