| Show OLD 0 L D WHITBY ww fa I 1 T by k tr 4 ia 41 1 it 4 M 14 scotch lassies classies work at whitby during fishing season prepared by national nil geographic society wh washington ington 1 D C service by time whitby M MELLOWED climbing the cliffs of the north sea coast to which it lias has clung for centuries draws many visitors who are lured by the atmosphere of old england most of the old part ot of the town remains as it was hundreds of yen years rs ago dominated by the parish church st marys built in 1100 and the famous ruins of whitby abbey today whitby Is a fishing port only and 0 ad its real splendors belong to tile the past to the days of the old saxon monastery of st hilda and caedmon to the days of the great synod in alien saxon kings and the leading ecclesiastic cles clesia lastIc lights of tile the land met with pomp and circumstance to settle the vexed question of the date of easter to the days of wooden ships and wooden shipbuilding ship building when whitby was fifth port in england and her sturdy oak built ships were ivere famed across the seven seas to the days when N hen whitby was one of the chief bases of the greenland whaling industry and cool cook and scoresby sailed from the port on their exciting enterprises to the days when 1500 men were regularly employed mining and carving jet a black semiprecious semi precious precyous mineral and twice this number were engaged in the alum industry along the coast there Is no shipping now at the dawn of the great iron age some of the yards turned to iron IL and many ji fine screw steamers ste steamers ameri were built on the stocks which then lined the upper harbor but the shallowness of that harbor and the distance from foundries and rolling mills were fatal handicaps and whitby found annihilating rivals in the ports of the tees and the tyne the alum industry died with the discovery of a cheaper method of production A trade which depends on the fickleness of feminine fashion Is built on sand and from a peak of prosperity reached lit in that glum period of court mourning that followed the death of queen victorias consort prince albert tile the jet trade declined until today it supports scarcely more than a dozen craftsmen ancient crooked streets street 11 the old towns streets are tortuous and narrow the names of the chief ones Baxter gate and Flower gate suggest that they were built when there were no traffic problems there Is documentary eldrence eil el dence of their existence in the fourteenth century flow argate climbs down the slope of the west cliff Baxter gate runs parallel to the docks A steel bridge orl originally inal a wooden drawbridge conducts its bewildered traffic to the east side of the harbor and here Is the equally ancient and ever narrower church street again running parallel to the harbor find and leading to the foot of the famous steps which the faithful must climb to attend worship in the parish church st 31 maryg arys whitby Is the shopping center tor for a wido rural area its shops are chiefly in the two main streets bt and its market backs off church street the market day is saturday early in the morning the farmers arrive in their neat little traps with baskets of butter eggs chickens curds filling tor for the famous yorkshire cheesecakes cheese cakes trussed geese rabb rabbits lit and the like chiefly lo in church street are the shops of the jet and fossil dealers let jet Is fossilized wood converted into car carbon tion it Is found in beds known as jet rock which crop out in several places along the coast it does not occur in seams like coal but in isolated pockets which make its mining a speculative business A man might dig for months and not find a handful A good pocket however when the trade was in its heyday might have been worth anything up to there Is no mining now what craftsmen are left depend for their supplies on the longshoremen who collect the bits washed out of the cliffs or from submarine exposures its jet Is distinctive while there Is diverse opinion regarding the merits of jet as a medium for the true artist it has inspired some very fine and original carving it Is easy to work and takes on a lovely polish as different from the glaze of glass and imitation jet as the polish of cheap furniture Is from the patina of a genuine piece of queen anne moreover while jet Is found elsewhere notably in spain whitby jet Is distinctive most of the famous craftsmen are dead and there has been a tendency for their successors to keep the staid standardized designs cut but here and there one of them will show a flash of originality ina lity and hope endures that the pendulum of fashion may swing back the fossils which form the second bow of the whitby jet dealers have a more strictly scientific interest T the ile commonest Is the ammonite it Is found in immense profusion along the entire coast but from the geologists point of view its most interesting aspect Is its extraordinary variety the ammonite of course was a marine animal belonging to the family of squids and octopuses oct opuses its nearest existing relative is the nautilus its variations are distinguished by size by number and shape of the corrugations of its shell by the presence or absence of spines or tubercles tub ercles the ammonite which Is particularly abundant on the rocks at the foot of the abbey cliff has given rise to an interesting legend which still finds credence among whitby fisher folk they believe it to be the petrified pe trifled remains of a snake rarely however la is a specimen found with its head intact the story goes that in the days of st hilda the district suffered from a plague of adders the holy lady was prevailed upon to uese use her influence against them with the result that first their heads were prayed off and then their bodies were turned into stone cottages of the fishermen from the main streets of whitby Baxter gate Flower gate church street and from skinner street sandgate Sand gate and st anns narrow lanes twist among the old cottages or lead to watery dead ends tho cottages are built in amazing confusion one has the impression that they must have pushed themselves up mushroom fashion from the ground wherever there was space they have no gardens they have with few exceptions no view save into their neighbors parlor or down his chimney stack they are however all built on one general plan which gives a kitchen parlor a best room two bedrooms and an attic their architects and builders were all men of the sea today it Is chiefly the fishermen who live in them even the fishan fishing trade of whitby has suffered more than an ordinary share ro of economic vicissitude old residents of the town can remember the time when in summer during the height of the north sea herring season the harbor was a forest of masts and they have since seen the time when the unloading of a solitary herring drifter created a sensation the herran herring trade has vanished but that spirit without which no industry can thrive has remained alive in tho the breasts of the sturdy whitby men and the port has of late years expert ence encee 1 I a revival in the crab and lobster trade coble a fine surf boat that view to the cast across the harbor so BO beloved of painters and photographers would not be complete without the bishin fishing craft moored hard up to the very threshold of the cottages without the lobster pots stacked upon the quays the salmon nets spread out on poles to dry in the sun bun without the groups of blue salt tanned men busy with their gear or gossiping some of these men are old white bearded and loquacious but most of them are in their prime tall square shouldered soft catlike in ibe the way they move about restrained in their speech watchful the type of craft characteristic of the coast Is the coble no photograph can show its superb sailing qualities its design Is the evolutionary outcome of conditions it Is 1 preem pre em ineptly a surf boat the cables greatest draft Is forward and on an open shore it Is landed stern first its slender bows offering no resistance to the surf it sails balls fast and very close to the wind because its long rudder acts as aa a keel but the rudder Is also a source of danger for it may foul a mass of seaweed or become entangled in anchored fishing gear when the boat Is in a heavy breeze the coble like a spirited horse demands expert handling |
