The 199 Steps
About
Officially The Church Stairs, and grade I listed in its own right. The flight climbs from the bottom of Church Street on the East Side up to St Mary's churchyard, and it has been the route between the town and its parish church since at least 1370, when the first written mention of it appears; the steps were wooden until the 1770s. Look for the level platforms partway up: they exist so that coffin bearers on a funeral procession could set the coffin down and get their breath back, which is the most Whitby detail on the whole climb. Running alongside is the Donkey Road, a grade I listed cobbled slope at close to a 50 per cent gradient, named for the beach donkeys that were walked down it in the morning and back up at night. Everyone counts. Almost nobody agrees on the total.
Photos
Highlights
- ✓Grade I listed, and formally named The Church Stairs
- ✓Level coffin-rest platforms partway up, built for funeral processions
- ✓The Donkey Road, a separately listed cobbled slope beside the steps
- ✓The view back down over the red pantile roofs and the harbour mouth
Tips
- →There is no lift and no step-free alternative on this route. If the steps are not an option, drive or take a taxi up to the East Cliff car park instead.
- →Go up early or late. In August the flight is effectively single-file with a queue on it.
- →The stone is slick in frost and after rain. The Donkey Road beside it is worse, not better.
- →Free and open at all hours, which makes it the best sunrise walk in the town.
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.
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.
Captain Cook Memorial Museum
The Grape Lane house where Cook lodged as an apprentice, now a museum of his Whitby years and the voyages that followed.