It was 135 years ago, on 24 October 1885, that a storm hit Whitby, Yorkshire, and the ship Dmitry ran aground and was wrecked in Collier’s Hope in the approaches to the harbour, a scene that later inspired Bram Stoker when he wrote Dracula.
When Stoker stayed in Whitby on holiday, he talked to the coastguard about the shipwreck. In his notes, he also mentioned how a big dog jumped off the grounded ship and ran up the church steps and into the churchyard. And so in Dracula, the ship became the Demeter and was wrecked in a storm at the harbour, “… as it rushed at headlong speed, swept the strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and gained the safety of the harbour”.
In the gothic horror novel, as rescuers shone a searchlight across the ship, they were horrified by the sight of a corpse lashed to the helm, which had evidently steered the ship into harbour. Then Dracula in the form of a large dog appeared. “But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff.”
