St Mary's Church, Whitby arch is a Jacobean pew. There is a monument to Sir Richard Cholmley who died in 1631. Two significant land slips due to broken drainage and torrential rain, the first occurring in November 2012, have placed the churchyard, and properties below the cliff, in significant jeopardy. Whitby town councillor Steve Smith stated the church was in no danger, having been built on solid rock. Human remains have fallen onto the street below, and pathways on the cliff-side of the church have been closed. Bram Stoker used St Mary's Church graveyard as the setting for a scene in his novel, "Dracula":
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1973 film) dormant long enough for Van Helsing to pierce his heart with a long spear. They leave him there. Before the portrait of a living warrior Dracula, with Lucy's lookalike in the background, a text scrolls across the screen, about a warlord who lived in the area of Hungary known as Transylvania, and how it was said he had found a way to conquer death—a legend no one has ever disproven. The lord's name is DRACULA. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1973 film) Dracula is a 1973 British television film adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel "Dracula" written by Richard Matheson and directed