Hilda

Hilda, St, the patroness of Whitby, was daughter of Heric, a nephew of Edwin of Northumbria, and was baptised at fourteen by Panlinus. Recalled by Bishop Aidan from her retreat in a French monastery, she became abbess of Heorta or Hartlepool in 649. In the year 657 she founded the famous monastery at Streoneshale or Whitby, a double house for nuns and monks, over which she ruled with remarkable wisdom for twenty-two years, dying in 680. Scott's Marmion commemorates the belief that the fossil ammonites found here were snakes 'changed into a coil of stone' by Hilda's prayers. Her effigy still stands on the ancient seal of Hartlepool, and churches preserve her name both there and at South Shields.