The artist Stephen Broadbent, who has been commissioned to design artwork for the Old New Quay regeneration project at Whitehaven harbour, has been meeting townsfolk, young and old, to gauge ideas and reaction to his plans to have a 6.3m long boat-shaped seat installed on the 18th century quay.

Stephen, whose last association with the town was in 1999 when he designed the whale tail-fin benches dotted about the harbour, is highly enthused about the story of the old Rocket Brigade, a life-saving band of volunteers who once had their HQ on Old New Quay, where the rocket house still remains.

He recently met members of Whitehaven Heritage Action Group and children from the Harbour Youth Project to bounce around ideas for the seat which, it is intended, will be fashioned from the same ‘purple oak’ as the whale benches and resemble the shape of a boat on its side. It is proposed to have five large pieces of toughened glass in which images relating to the Rocket Brigade could be enclosed between two thick panes, surrounded by a framework of steel.

Old New Quay was built in 1742 to give protection to Old Quay and there used to be two lighthouse keepers’ cottages at the south end. It was also home to the TS Bee Sea Cadets training ‘ship’ for many years, a building which is disappearing to make way for the renovation and re-opening to the public, after 70 years of being off limits.

The Whitehaven Rocket Brigade was formed in 1849 when the first shore-to-ship rescue device was bought for the town. The volunteers, who would support the lifeboatmen, would haul the apparatus on a wagon to where a stricken ship was floundering off shore. The rockets, carrying ropes, were fired out and once received on board, a much heavier cable could be drawn across, facilitating the use of a breeches-buoy to rescue stranded crew and passengers.

The Sea Cadets, formed in the 1940s and still going strong, will be commemorated with a bronze roundel set into the ground.