How Many Prayers Were Offered Up In This Magnificent Abbey ?

Whitby Abbey, Yorkshire, England.

Photo by Jörg Schumacher | EinfachMedien.de on Fivehundredpx

Illustration: PINTEREST

The following Text is from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia.

Whitby Abbey is a ruined Benedictine Abbey overlooking The North Sea on the East Cliff above Whitby, Yorkshire, England. It was disestablished during The Dissolution of The Monasteries under the auspices of King Henry VIII. It is a Grade I Listed Building in the care of English Heritage and its Site Museum is housed in Cholmley House.

The first Monastery was Founded in 657 A.D. by the Anglo-Saxon era King of Northumbria, Oswy (Oswiu), as Streoneshalh (the older name for Whitby). He appointed Lady Hilda, Abbess of Hartlepool Abbey and Grand-Niece of Edwin, the first Christian King of Northumbria, as Founding Abbess.

The Double Monastery of Celtic Monks and Nuns was home to the great Northumbrian poet Cædmon. In 664 A.D., The Synod of Whitby - at which King Oswiu ruled that the Northumbrian Church would adopt The Roman calculation of Easter and Monastic Tonsure - took place at the Abbey.

Streoneshalch was laid waste by the Danes in successive raids between 867 A.D. and 870 A.D., under Ingwar and Ubba, and remained desolate for more than 200 years. The existence of 'Prestebi', meaning the habitation of Priests in Old Norse, at The Domesday Survey, may point to the revival of Religious Life. The old Monastery, given to Reinfrid, comprised about forty ruined Monasteria vel Oratoria, similar to Irish Monastic ruins with numerous Chapels and Cells.