Mina's diary: 24 July. Whitby.
Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is.

The valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to see down. The houses of the old town - the side away from us, are all red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg.

Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of 'Marmion', where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits. There is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones.

Vocabulary:

Crescent:A road in the fashionable part of town
Rooms: Here it means the rooms were rented
Viaduct:A bridge carrying water
Piers: Here it means 'pillars': supporting columns
Sacked: Attacked, robbed and destroyed
Marmion:A popular 19th century poem
Parish: The administrative area of a church
Tombstones: Markers showing where someone is buried
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