Following £1.6 million investment to improve the visitor experience, Whitby Abbey is re-opened on 10 April 2019.

Visitors can now explore 3,000 years of history in the new permanent exhibition with dramatic displays of unique objects and an interactive guide which brings the abbey’s stories to life.

Visitors will also be able to enjoy the new tree-lined avenue, additional seating and a cosy coffee shop, making sure you get the most out of your visit.

The ruins of Whitby Abbey are among the most celebrated sights of North Yorkshire. The first monastery here, founded in about 657, became one of the most important religious centres in the Anglo-Saxon world. In 664 it was the setting for the Synod of Whitby, a landmark in the history of the Church in England. The headland is now dominated by the shell of the 13th-century church of the Benedictine abbey founded after the Norman Conquest.

The abbey was also the landing place of Bram Stoker’s Dracula who, shipwrecked, leapt up the 199 steps to the abbey disguised as a huge black dog.

Whitby Abbey 2