Thousands of Goths in Dracula resort forweekend of the macabre and mysterious

Robert Sutcliffe

IT IS famed around the world as a location that helped inspire Bram Stoker’s legendary novel, Dracula.

And thousands of Goths will descend on Whitby to celebrate the historic port’s famous weekend dedicated to the alternative and macabre.

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Revellers are travelling from across the country to the North Yorkshire seaside town for the Whitby Gothic Weekend, which began in the early 1990s and is now staged every April and October.

The second event of the year always proves popular as it has the added resonance of the Halloween celebrations, which fall at the end of the weekend’s festivities.

One of this weekend’s highlights will be Whitby Abbey’s Victorian Gothic event, which was first staged last year and is being held up until Saturday.

Historical re-enactors will be at the English Heritage site and performances will include the recreation of a Victorian funeral procession, to demonstrate the extravagant send-offs of the bygone era.

Whitby has become an iconic haunt for Goths after the town’s St Mary’s Church was featured in Stoker’s Dracula novel.