Whitby

 .Extract from The New Travel Book -
North of Watford Gap - John Brown ..

Whitby lies at the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors, at the mouth of the River Esk. The town is split by the river into two distinct areas, east and west, and dominated by the sheer cliffs that sit menacingly above.

 It's not perhaps surprising then, that this was the seaside town chosen by Bram Stoker in 1890 as the setting for his bestselling novel Dracula. For some time he had been working on a novel inspired by Hungarian adventurer Arminius Vambery. Stoker had listened with avid interest to his tales of the eastern European living dead, and their constant need for fresh blood. In Whitby, Stoker had found the perfect setting for his masterpiece. The immense foreboding abbey that overlooks the town, and the narrow streets, with their dark challenging alleyways all added to the developing plot of his novel
..
 During his stay in Whitby, Stoker stayed for some time at a small inn by the river. Each evening at dusk the local pigeons would sit on the window ledge and tap mindlessly at their reflections in the glass. This action was written into Stoker's work, and became the sound of Dracula, as he tapped with his long nails on Lucy’s window, seeking attention (and the odd pint if she could spare it). In addition, the bats to the rear of the inn were incorporated into the whole creepy setting, for what, in our terminology, turned out to be an enormous best seller.