TWO reasons why the North Yorkshire town of Whitby is so celebrated are dark, smooth and elegant. One is Count Dracula, the other is Whitby jet. That both are associated with mournful Victorians also accounts for Whitby’s attraction to those of a Gothic frame of mind.
Popular legend has it that jet is the fossilised remains of an ancestor of a monkey puzzle tree deposited on the Yorkshire coast 180 million years ago. ‘That’s
