FROM the general to the particular – in fact 14 “particulars”. That’s the number of walks in this excellent booklet devoted to the former estates of Whitby’s two abbeys – the vanished Saxon and its Norman successor.

Overlapping, they stretch about eight miles inland, to Egton, and about 19 miles southward, down to Hackness, site of a daughter abbey.

All circular, the walks vary in length from 7.1 miles to 11.8 miles, but several can be divided into shorter loops. The routes are carefully described and mapped, and many goodquality illustrations accompany both these descriptions and generous double- page spreads describing features of interest. These range from ice-age channels to the little-known remains (at Sandsend) of a works that manufactured “Roman” cement.

Formed in 1989, the Friends of Whitby Abbey deserve congratulation on this most professional and pleasing publication. Profits will go towards the Friends’ next enterprise – a Dvd of the abbey’s charters, covering more than four centuries up to the abbey’s dissolution in 1539.