Whitby Abbey: A Benedictine monastery founded in England in 657 A.D.: Whitby Abbey was a Benedictine monastery founded in Yorkshire, England, in 657 C.E. During Henry VIII's Protestant Reformation of England, the monastery was dissolved in 1538. The ruin stands on a high cliff overlooking the chilly North Sea. In 1914, Whitby Abbey was partially destroyed by German shell fire, during a bombardment of the neighboring seaport. [Picture and caption circa 1920.]

Irish writer Bram Stoker's Dracula was most likely at least partially inspired by the ruins at Whitby, and sections of his most famous novel are set in and around Whitby Abbey (it is where Dracula comes ashore following a shipwreck). Stoker is known to have traveled to Whitby in 1890, and to there first encounter the name Dracula, entering it into his notes. Click here to enlarge.