The original one-hit-wonder, Caedmon, is remembered as the father of English poetry. A genuine wonder it was, too, given that Caedmon (we only have Bede’s word for it but hey, he was Venerable) was an illiterate farm labourer who left a sing-song early upset at not having a party piece, only to go home and dream up a magnificent song of creation: the first hymn.
Visitors to Whitby, a seaside town in north Yorkshire, can see a memorial to Caedmon today on which is carved, suitably poetically, that he “fell asleep hard” in 680.
The memorial is in St Mary's graveyard, a creepy spot that inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula .
Stoker holidayed in Whitby in 1890. Visitors today can stay in the Stoker room of the La Rosa Hotel enjoying, as the management puts it with a little artistic licence of their own, “the view that inspired Bram”.
The quirky hotel has prior literary credentials having previously hosted Lewis Carroll. This explains the decidedly Through the Looking Glass feel to the place, furnished as it is via auctions, flea markets and car boots.
Its eclectic mix of bedrooms includes the Lewis, a reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s study, the Sacre Coeur (where “romance is sacred”) and Arabesque, where the theme is “inside the genie’s bottle”.
The Stoker room is suitably dark and Gothic and costs £110 a night. It is also the perfect place to stay for Whitby Goth Weekend, a biannual event taking place later this month and at which a tour of the graveyard, preferably after dark, is surely de rigueur.
Just don't trip and fall asleep hard.
larosa.co.uk
