most probably the town also; but the invaders gradually
started new settlements, or 'bys,' and Whitby must certainly have grown
into a place of some size by the time of Edward the Confessor, for just
previous to the Norman invasion it was assessed for Danegeld to the
extent of a sum equivalent to L3,500 at the present time.

After the Conquest a monk named Reinfrid succeeded in reviving a
monastery on the site of the old one, having probably gained the
permission of William de Percy, the lord of the district. The new
establishment, however, was for monks only, and was for some time
merely a priory.

The form of the successive buildings from the time of Hilda until the
building of the stately abbey church, whose ruins are now to be seen, is
a subject of great interest, but, unfortunately, there are few facts to
go upon. The very first church was, as I have already suggested, a
building of rude construction, scarcely better than the humble dwellings
of the monks and nuns. The timber walls were most probably thatched, and
the windows would be of small lattice or boards pierced with small
holes. Gradually the improvements brought about would have led to the
use of stone for the walls, and the buildings destroyed by the Danes
probably resembled such examples of Anglo-Saxon work as may still be
seen in the churches of Bradford-on-Avon and Monkwearmouth.

The buildings erected by Reinfrid under the Norman influence then
prevailing in England must have been a slight advance upon the destroyed
fabric, and we know that during the time of his successor, Serlo de
Percy, there was a certain Godfrey in charge of the building operations,
and there is every reason to believe that he completed the church during
the fifty years of prosperity the monastery passed through at that time.
But this was not the structure which survived, for towards the end of
Stephen's reign, or during that of Henry II., the unfortunate convent
was devastated by the King of Norway, who entered the harbour, and, in
the words of the chronicle, 'laid waste everything, both within doors
and without.' The abbey slowly recovered from this disaster, and if any
church were built on the ruins between 1160 and the reconstruction
commenced in 1220, there is no part of it surviving to-day in the
beautiful ruin that still makes a conspicuous landmark from the sea.

It was after the Dissolution that the abbey buildings came into the
hands of Sir Richard Cholmley, who pai