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 well known. The first authorised film version of "Dracula" did not come about until almost a decade later when Universal Studios released Tod Browning's "Dracula" starring Bela Lugosi. Canadian writer Dacre Stoker, a great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, decided to write "a sequel that bore the Stoker name" to "reestablish creative control over" the original novel, with encouragement from screenwriter Ian Holt, because of the Stokers' frustrating history with "Dracula's" copyright. In 2009, "Dracula: The Un-Dead" was released, written by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt. Both writers "based [their work] on Bram Stoker's own handwritten notes for characters and plot threads