below are fed by the united efforts of innumerable tiny streams deep in
the heather. Behind us stands the massive-looking parish church, with
its Norman tower, so sturdily built that its height seems scarcely
greater than its breadth. There is surely no other church with such a
ponderous exterior that is so completely deceptive as to its internal
aspect, for St. Mary's contains the most remarkable series of
beehive-like galleries that were ever crammed into a parish church.
They are not merely very wide and ill-arranged, but they are superposed
one abode the other. The free use of white paint all over the sloping
tiers of pews has prevented the interior from being as dark as it would
have otherwise been, but the result of all this painted deal has been
to give the building the most eccentric and indecorous appearance.

The early history of Whitby from the time of the landing of Roman
soldiers in the inlet seems to be very closely associated with the
abbey founded by Hilda about two years after the battle of Winwidfield,
fought on November 15, A.D. 654; but I will not venture to state an
opinion here as to whether there was any town at Streoneshalh before
the building of the abbey, or whether the place that has since become
known as Whitby grew on account of the presence of the abbey. Such
matters as these have been fought out by an expert in the archaeology
of Cleveland--the late Canon Atkinson, who seemed to take infinite
pleasure in demolishing the elaborately constructed theories of those
painstaking historians of the eighteenth century, Dr. Young and Mr.
Lionel Charlton.

Many facts, however, which throw light on the early days of the abbey
are now unassailable. We see that Hilda must have been a most
remarkable woman for her times, instilling into those around her a
passion for learning as well as right-living, for despite the fact that