The Ebor Jetworks
About
A working Whitby jet workshop in a seventeenth-century cottage on Church Street, and the place to go if you want to understand what the black stone in every window on this street actually is. Whitby jet is fossilised wood from the Early Jurassic, roughly 180 million years old, formed in the Jet Rock of the local shale and found nowhere else in Britain in this quality. It carves, turns and polishes like nothing else, which is why a Victorian industry of over a thousand workers grew up here on the back of mourning fashion, and why the trade very nearly died when that fashion passed. The Ebor family make their jewellery on the premises and say so plainly on their own site: it is handcrafted in front of visitors, with a free jet working demonstration available through the day. Seeing the stone cut is the difference between buying jewellery and understanding it.
Photos
Highlights
- ✓Whitby jet cut and polished on the premises in front of customers
- ✓A free jet working demonstration available through the day
- ✓An explanation of what jet is: fossilised wood, not a mineral and not coal jewellery
- ✓Advice on telling real Whitby jet from the substitutes sold as it
Tips
- →Open every day. The workshop's own site gives the free jet working demonstration as 10.30 to 17.30 daily, and Google Places lists the same hours seven days a week.
- →Ring 01947 603113 before making a special trip for the demonstration.
- →Go here before you buy jet anywhere else on Church Street, not after.
Best Season
More Attraction Activities
Whitby Abbey
The medieval abbey ruin on the East Cliff, with an English Heritage museum covering Hild, Caedmon and the Dracula connection.
The 199 Steps
The grade I listed Church Stairs from Church Street up to St Mary's, in use since at least 1370, with coffin-rest platforms on the way.
St Mary's Church
The clifftop parish church at the top of the steps, with an extraordinary unrestored interior of white box pews fitted by ships' carpenters.