PAGE 8, WEUNESDAY. AUGUST 31, 1977, WHITBY FREE PRESS Ancien t'abbey and oldparish church THE WILSON ARMS A STREET IN OLD WIHTBY *ANNOU.NCEMENT. MANCHESTER COMMUNITY CREDIT UNION LTD. wifl be opening a Whitby Branch Office at 400 DUNDAS ST. WEST (corner of Kent and Dundas) ON SEPTEM BER 6th, 1977 Hours of operation wiII heoas follows: Monday to Thursday 90M to Spm Friday 9am to 6pm The followiaug services ore avoable MOANS Porsonal hans, mortgage bans, Ibis of credit lans, business loans TERM DEPOSITS SAVUNGS (Plan 24) ntrest calulated daily, crodited quarterly PERSONAL CHEQUING ACCOUNTS Ask for deois No service charge - Registered Home Ownership Plans, Retiromont Savings Plans, Travobors Choques No service charge - Payment of hydro and water bâis and tobephone biks No service charge - safoty doposit boxes avaibabbe ini the near future Anyone working or'residing in the Town of Whitby is eigible t'O become a member, rar faar*imr, informaution, contact Our office at 668-4500 Cont'd from P. 1 1 obtained a' copy of the regatta programn to show to mnembers of our County Town Carnival Committee. Later in the afternoon we witnessed the crowning of Beverly Gibson as Miss Regatta 1977, by Linda Stanforth, the 1976 Queen. Capt. Cooper presided over the ceremony, weating a tartan kilt. Our next stop was Whitby Abbey, a majestic ruin of a Benedictine monastery closed by Henry VIII in 1539, and until 1920, robbed of its stone for building purposes. The present ruin is that of a great church commeneed in 1220 on the site of a Saxon Abbey founded by St. Hilda in 657. Whitby Abbey was the scene of an historie Synod in 664 which established the dates of Easter and Whitsun- tide, another religious holiday. The delegates had to choose between the dates of thie Roman and Celtie Clhurch, calendars and voted in favour of the Roman Churchi. We had a personally guided tour by the curator of the abbey, Les Stainthorp, whio explained its long history. My rnost adventurous episode at Whitby Abbey was a- clinmb 90 feet up inside one of the abbey's towers. After a precarious climb up a i S4oot ladder, 1 made mny way up a circular staircase to thehighest level of the tower and could have ventured across to the east end of the abbey, but as there was no protection from a faîl, I'decided not to. The tower is normally kept Iocked and people must gain per- mission to climb it.* The east wail of the abbey, reflected in a shallow pool, is a scene reproduced on travel posters ail over England. We saw one of these at Heathrow Airport in London. A stone from this famous abbey was placed in the wall of Ail Saints' Anglican Church in Whitby Ontario in December 1939, and there are plans to send another stone to the new town of Whitby in New Zealand. Following our visit to the abbey, we toured St. Mary's Parish Church a stone build- ing begun in 1110 overlooking Whitby harbor. The church is surrounded by gravestones badly weather- I IDvu ou