Twice a year, hundreds of darkly-dressed souls descend on a former fishing town on the North Yorkshire coast. We went along to see what all the fuss is about
It’s lashing with rain on the first day of Whitby’s legendary Goth Weekend. Water cascades down the streets, landlords sweep puddles out of pub doorways and bedraggled people huddle at bus stops after severe weather wreaks havoc on the public transport. But it’s not enough to stop the goths.
Figures in long black frock coats and Dickensian skirts roam the sopping streets under umbrellas and women in black veils brave the horizontal downpours to pose for pictures in St Mary’s Church’s cliff-top graveyard. I’ve been coming to Whitby since I was a child and always wondered what it would be like to see thousands of goths – surely one of the most beach-adverse tribes – descend on the tiny seaside town with its kitsch arcades and funfair rides.
When the sun finally comes out for the festival’s second day, it feels incongruous to see people in black corsets, ‘Hellraiser’ masks and Siouxsie Sioux makeup wandering down the pier with fish and chips, and playing on the seaside arcade penny machines. But this mishmash of aesthetics is all in the spirit of the weekend.
Whitby has long been a destination for people interested in goth culture, thanks to the fact Bram Stoker set many scenes of his vampire novel ‘Dracula’ here, after being inspired by the spectral splendour of the 1,360-year-old ruins of Whitby Abbey. The Goth Weekend started in 1994 when a woman called Jo Hampshire from Barnsley put an advert in ‘NME’ magazine asking if any goths fancied meeting in Whitby on Halloween weekend. Two-hundred people turned up, and gradually, the meet-ups grew, attracting thousands of people, becoming bi-annual in 1997 and incorporating a huge alternative market and music festival.
‘It’s a place where anyone who’s ever felt left out or isolated can come and feel at home,’ says 26-year-old Bethany, whose ruby red mohawke is piled in a tight bun on top of her otherwise shaved head. ‘Everyone’s welcome.’
Whitby Goth Weekend is the type of place where you’ll find 80-year-old local women chatting pleasantly to a man dressed as a skeleton and self-declared Satanists talking football scores with staff from fast food stands: everyone is welcome and everyone wants to share their passion. So, without further ado, here are the most surprising things we learnt at the Whitby Goth Weekend.
Goths across the world travel here for the festival every year. I meet 25-year-old Julia in the alternative market at Whitby Pavillion who came from Sweden especially. She has a voluminous mess of black, combed-back hair and shimmering red eyes that match her stained lips. ‘If you’re in the alternative scene in Sweden, of course you know Whitby,’ she says.
There’s also a burgeoning goth movement among young people in China, and you’ll find hundreds of Chinese students in Whitby for the weekend. I meet Monica and Nancy on Whitby Beach, who tell me they discovered Whitby on Chinese social media site ‘Little Red Book’. ‘Goth culture seems much more accepted here,’ they tell me. ‘It’s nice to dress up and celebrate being weird and alternative.’
One couple tells me they’ve spent two months crafting their post-apocalyptic folk-Goth outfits for the weekend and I see a woman with a billowing skirt that lights up in the dark. There’s also rumours that someone has come with a headdress featuring a live iguana. I spot the reptilian tiara across the pier before the wearer gets sucked back into the crowds.
Nearly everyone I speak to comments on Whitby’s goth shops. Twenty-one-year-old Tongxin who I met outside Whitby Abbey told me she bought her elaborate Elizabethan-style dress, spiky diadem and accompanying skull ornament the day before in the town. Pandemonium is the longest-running goth apparel shop in Whitby, but we saw the longest queues outside The Great Goth on Silver Street, which is full of ruffled skirts and leather corsets.
While there are plenty of goth subcultures at the festival – from dark wave to nu-goth – Victoriana is one of the largest groups, no doubt owing to the town’s literary connections. Expect to see lots of people in black top hats and frock coats as well as others in truly astonishing polonaise skirts parading the cobbled streets.
‘Tomorrow’s Ghosts’ music festival caused a stir when it started coinciding with the weekend in 2018. It’s where you’ll find A-list goth rock, post-punk and other alternative acts with bands like New Model Army, Ghost Dance and, this year, Theatre of Hate and Westerana.
While Whitby Abbey might be the most iconic landmark in the town, it’s the neighbouring St Mary’s Church graveyard where you’ll find some of the most elaborate lewks as people take pictures among the gnarled tombstones. The church is still a conservation site, though, and each year the footfall from the festival results in around £2,500 of damage.
If you do visit St Mary’s, whatever you do, don’t ask where Dracula’s grave is (spoiler: there isn’t one). There’s even a laminated poster on the church door reading: ‘Where is Dracula’s grave? Do you know, we are asked this more than any other by visitors to this church and we are sorry to disappoint you, but it’s not here. In fact, it’s not anywhere because Dracula is fiction. It’s just a story.’
The church gets fully on board with the occasion, holding a Goth Mass. It’s essentially a normal evening church service, however the vicar wears Doc Martens and a vampire cape and this year the hymns are sung to the music of Gary Numan. Seeing a man dressed as Michael Myers from ‘Halloween’ going up to get Holy Communion is not something I’ll forget in a hurry.
One of the best things about Whitby Goth Weekend? It’s free and inclusive. Most of the action spills out onto the streets and you’ll find free gigs and events in the town’s pubs, taprooms and breweries. It might be a lot bigger than when it first started 29 years ago, but its grassroots ethos remains exactly the same.
Read more: the 18 best things to do in Whitby.
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