UK 2026 Diary, Days 8-9
In which we visit Whitby Abbey, Cambridge, and reach our end in London
Greetings, my dear readers, from New Smyrna Beach! Twyla and I arrived home safely two days ago. I would not say we had jet lag from our return flight (for us, that hits almost entirely after arriving in the UK), but a general weariness and perhaps a low-key culture shock (read: “humidity in Florida”) had me laying low till today to complete this diary. But after two nights of decent sleep at home, I have some wind at my sails to produce for you all this final entry.
The summary is that on Tuesday, we checked out of our most lovely hotel in Durham and hit the motorway for the market town of Whitby, on the east coast of England. We arrived into the town, beholding with great wonder and thrill the ancient ruins of Whitby Abbey from afar. Once we arrived, we were blown away by the beauty of this former abbey of immense significance, now in ruins. Its most famous resident, Saint Hilda of Whitby, is herself an Saint of immense significant to English/Anglican Christian tradition. It was after her (and S. Hildegard of Bingen) that we named our youngest daughter. There will be tons of photographs of our experience at Whitby Abbey in the long description, below.
Our next stop was a long drive to Cambridge. Our original plan was to arrive in Cambridge so as to participate in an Evensong service at King’s College Chapel, among the most famous Christian chapels on God’s green earth. But we altered our plans when it became possible to meet Mark Ari Fisher for dinner in London, plans which we arranged whilst driving through Yorkshire. We did make it to Cambridge, and we did walk about the area adjacent to King’s College Chapel, in which we visited two parish churches and looked at a third from the outside. We hoped to be able to enter the Chapel for a moment to snap some photographs, but that was not possible. So we hit the motorway for London. We got there in perfect time to meet Mark for dinner at a tapas restaurant. We had a very nice time with him, as we had had on Sunday in Shrewsbury with him along with the Harts.
Thereupon we dropped Mark at a subway station, and drove to Gatwick airport in a mild British rain the whole way. We dropped off our rental car—having put almost 1,400 miles on it over these seven days!—and got to our hotel without trouble. We konked fairly quickly after we settled down from that bit of bussle.
The next day we rather leisurely walked to the airport terminal, and the rest is uneventful. The flight took off at 11 am UK time and arrived at 5 pm Florida time: about an eight hour flight. Twyla watched a couple of films (including The Godfather) and my primary activity was reading Origen on the Psalms.
Our arrival at the Orlando airport turned joyous when we met our family (save Marla, who could not join the trek to the airport because she was working) after getting through customs. Here I am with the two littles:
Thus ended our UK trip! It was amazing and satisfying and holy and exciting and inspiring.
The long description of days 8-9, with more photographs, follows below.If you are not a paid subscriber, consider becoming one, because doing so supports my public ministry of Akenside Institute. Click the button below:
I will leave you with a portion of the Venerable S. Bede’s hagiography of the noble Saint Alban (d. AD 304), fruitful Britain’s son”
Alban sheltered a Christian priest fleeing persecution. As he saw him at prayer, his heart was opened to the grace of God, and he became instructed in the Christian faith. After a while, word got out that a Christian fugitive was hiding in Alban’s home. Soldiers came and after a thorough search they found their man. But in fact it was Alban dressed up in the priest’s cloak. When he saw who it was, the magistrate was furious. He commanded Alban to sacrifice to the (Roman) gods. But Alban freely declared that he was now a Christian, saying “If you would like to know the truth of my faith, realise that I am quite ready to do my duty as a Christian.” Blessed Alban was beheaded on 22 June near the Roman city of Verulamium (present day St Alban’s). Later when the Church was at peace, a lovely church was built there as a memorial to his martyrdown. Even today many sick people are healed there by the Saint’s miracles.
God bless you all!
DAY 8—TUESDAY
Our walk up to Whitby Abbey from the parking lot was glorious. We could see a bit in the distance the North Sea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. The abbey sits on a cliff, not far from the edge. We could also see the town of Whitby to the other side of the abbey ruins. The sun was good, and it was fairly chilly but a perfect temperature (around 45 degrees F).
Twyla took this photo during our walkup:
We walked around and through the ruins, and this is what we saw:
Here is a short video:
You can find out much more about Whitby Abbey if you go to this link.
As far as Saint Hilda of Whitby, who is the founder of the abbey and was its leader (“abbess”), a brief but helpful description of her significance can be found here.
After finding the museum at the site, we saw these things to photograph:
Here are some digital renderings of the growth of the abbey building structure over time, from 1109 to 1470:
According to the internet, this was the fate of the abbey thereafter:
“In 1539, under King Henry VIII’s campaign to dismantle monasteries, the abbey was officially suppressed. The abbey’s buildings and lands were confiscated by the Crown, marking the end of its religious function. Although it did not suffer the same level of destruction as some other monasteries—partly because its ruins continued to serve as a navigational landmark for sailors—the site was largely stripped of valuable materials like lead from the roof, and its monastic buildings were demolished. The core of the abbey’s estates and buildings were subsequently sold to Sir Richard Cholmley, who repurposed them into a private residence, Cholmley House.”
We thoroughly enjoyed our time visiting Whitby Abbey! We hope to visit again with the whole family, and ideally take in some of the town, cliffs, and the seashore. We have been told that the fish and chips at Whitby are amongst the best in England.
The drive to Cambridge was rather long—four hours. It was eased by the messaging back and forth with Mark Ari Fisher about if, when, and where we could meet for dinner. At the same time, Twyla and I were revising what we could manage, time-wise, so that we could arrive in London at the right time. We settled on the plan to park the car, head towards King’s College Chapel, and do what we could. We hoped we could at least walk into the Chapel to see it and snap a photo or two or fifty.
Our drive was also eased by the music we listened to the whole trip whenever in the car: Hildegarn of Bingen’s sacred chant, from this album:
Hers in my most-listened-to music. It has basically been on shuffle in my life for the past 25 years.
I should add that this Chapel, although none of the Dallmans have been there, holds a special place in our hearts. This is because we have a family tradition, that every Christmas Eve morning, we decorate our Christmas Tree (which I call our “Advent Mary Burning Bush”) while listening to Lessons and Carols from King’s College Chapel. It is a glorious service that has been offered annually since 1918. The website is here with more information. We like to listen devotionally over coffee and homemade treats. It starts at 10 am Florida time and lasts about an hour. I recommend it! You can also find services from previous years on YouTube.
We arrived safely and drove slowly through the bustling city towards the parking garage near the Chapel. Then we hoofed it over to it.
Down the block a bit was this building:
…on which was this statue:
…because sometime in Cambridge you come upon a statue of King Henry VIII—who sought not a divorce but an annulment! (Of course, his actions to dissolve the monasteries were absolutely evil.)
Anyway, it turned out that the Chapel does not allow photography of any kind. We found this out whilst waiting in line to enter the Chapel—a line that stretched well over 100 people, for a service on a Tuesday evening, at that. Pretty impressive! We were bummed, but we consoled ourselves that we, God-willing, will visit the Chapel as a family and, thereby, have a more grand time.
We bopped into a two nearby churches here was the first:
And here was the second, St Bene’t’s:
And, to our great delight, we found that icon on the right, above, of S. Anne holding the Theotokos—the very one painted by her teacher and which Twyla recently completed her own version of, using his as model:
If you focus, you can read the scroll, as it is in English, in a kind of “Hebrew font.” Such a blessing to venerate this icon in Cambridge!
On our walk back to the parking garage, we passed another ancient and beautiful church:
Off to London we went, about a 90 minute drive. Because it was after rush hour, we did not encounter much traffic as we entered greater London. We found our spot without much trouble. It was in a neighborhood that looked like this:
At this spot:
And this was the crew—Mark, Twyla, and myself, another community of hope.
We had a lovely tapas dinner, with plenty of conversation and laughs. I did not snap any food photos, but given the restraints of Lent (basically vegan), we chose delicious dishes, which were—oh, yes—served on small plates.
After the meal, about 2.5 hours I think, we dropped Mark off afterwards in the Whitechapel train entrance. It was very cool to hang with him again. Again, do check out his website. Superb iconography comes from his hand.
As wrote above in the summary, we made it to Gatwick airport with a bit of stress, owing to the rain and the difficult in finding the precise location to return the car. It all got handled, and we were in our hotel room without much trouble. The flight home was uneventful but long, as it always is. The humidity in Florida, even though I expected it, still shocked me as it hit me coming out of the airport terminal. The drive home was lively conversation, and arriving at home we finally saw Marla, with much rejoicing. I will end with this moment; Twyla snuggling with the littles (Martin and Hilda) on a couch in the rectory:
Thank you, my dear readers! Here endeth the diary.