Fitz
speaker
397 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Oct 2024
last heard Nov 2024
Fitz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
The so-called Railway King, true to his name, added even more impetus to the scheme by carving a small railway line into the cliff face to make it easier to ferry building materials up the steep incline, which was, and still is, named Khyber Pass, after the famous mountain pass in Pakistan that was a vital part of the ancient Silk Road trade route.
But the railway king's reign was cut short when his goals outstretched his means, and he was discovered to have been fudging his finances, owing money that he couldn't repay. He fled abroad for a while to escape his creditors, but was arrested in 1865 and served time in prison for fraud. The railway king's empire fell, and Whitby's Royal Crescent was never finished.
And this is how Bram Stoker would have found the West Cliff in 1890, with its lopsided, unfinished Royal Crescent, but with a freshly built crop of lodging houses, pretty clifftop gardens made for leisurely strolls, and epic views over the historic town. There's a popular story that back in 1890, when Stoker made his first visit to Whitby, the landlady of No.
6 Royal Crescent didn't like her patrons hanging around the house all day, and so sent them off to explore the town. I don't know if this is true or not, but explore Bram Stoker did, taking in all the elements of the West Cliff and the town and harbour below and working them, and a good deal of local lore and legend, into his novels.
Although the landscape of Dracula takes place across multiple locations, which we experience through the collection of letters, diary entries and newspaper cuttings that make up the book, the scenes that take place in Whitby are so evocative. And a big part of that is because, visiting Whitby today, the landscape is not much changed.
Although of course the signs of 21st century life are plain to see, and some landmarks might have been updated or renovated, nearly all the elements he described are still here for us to experience today, and it's possible to follow the adventures of our protagonists through the Whitby landscape almost step by step.
One diary entry in the book that encapsulates so many of the featured locations is the scene where Mina Murray, our brave and yet gentle Victorian heroine, suffers the terror of seeing her best friend attacked by the malevolent Count and makes a midnight dash all the way across town in the depths of night to try and rescue her from his clutches.
Happily for us, her journey on that fateful night happens to hit upon not only many of the places featured in other important scenes in the novel, but also the real haunted hotspots of the town. Whether by accident or design, Stoker plotted a route that passes through the sights of some of Whitby's best ghost stories.
So, let us now join Mina as she wakes suddenly in the dark bedroom of the lodging house that she shares with her friend Lucy, only to find the young woman missing. Suspecting that her friend is sleepwalking again, Mina rushes out into the night to find her and bring her back to safety, as she writes in this chapter of her journal.
Directly below the Cook Monument is Whitby Beach and it was from here that one local gentleman encountered the White Wraith at the turn of the century in 1905. At the time the witness was a young man, part of a group of Boy Scouts who were enjoying a campfire on the beach below the part of West Cliff on which the Cook Monument stands.
It was evening but had been a fine day with no rain or mist or bad weather to speak of so the group were surprised when they looked up and saw a misty white figure at the top of the cliff.
clearly discernible as the shape of a person but with no defining features the figure proceeded to float down the cliff face and the youths ran to the spot where they predicted it would land on the beach eager to see what manner of being this was but the moment before the feet should have hit the sand the figure disappeared
Author of the Whitby ghost book, Paul McDermott, was told of a similar encounter during a chance conversation with a visitor who had holidayed in Whitby some years before. Only this witness's experience took place 75 years after the scouts had encountered the White Wraith.
This time, the misty figure appeared in front of the eyes of a baffled man and woman who were walking their dog on the beach just as they passed under the Cook Monument. As before, it was a clear day, with no mist or fog to explain the apparition that floated down the face of West Cliff, once again vanishing the moment before it touched down on the beach.
The woman turned to her partner in amazement wondering if he had seen it too. It seemed he must have as he was busy speeding away from whatever it was as fast as possible and he resolutely refused to discuss what he had seen.
No one seems to know who or what the White Wraith is, or what its connection to the Cook Monument might be, possibly nothing at all, as these cliffs are ancient and have been settled for thousands of years, so who knows what secrets and stories they hold.
But our next story probably does have links to a more recent time in history and takes us just a few paces along the cliff to that other famous monument occupying a rather uncomfortable place in the annals of Whitby's history. A large archway, his placement perfectly frames the dramatic view of the Abbey and St Mary's Church on the rugged East Cliff.
Tourist maps will eagerly tell you that the creepy looking little tunnel cut through the side of Khyber Pass is a hideout of Count Dracula. Somewhere he lures his victims who scream as they meet their fate. Hence the name, the Screaming Tunnel. It does look rather creepy. It's a claustrophobically narrow, stone-lined channel that cuts right through the cliff.
The shine of the rain-slick flagstones does nothing to alleviate the inky black shadows within, and tendrils of ivy hang from the ceiling and archway, swaying wetly in the breeze. In fact, though, this is not a hideout of the Count. It's actually another legacy of George Hudson, the railway king, who built it as a shortcut to the harbour below for the transport of building materials.
Once this is known, it becomes quite obvious that it looks exactly like a railway tunnel, just on a miniature scale. Today, it's a footpath that forms a shortcut into the town, down a steep flight of steps. It actually doesn't feature in Dracula at all, but despite the misplaced name, it is haunted.
Showing 281–300 of 397 · page 15 of 20
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