Whitehaven's past has a lot of stories to tell - but did you know that one of the world's most famous storytellers spent formative years in the town?
Mystery still surrounds the connection and what exactly happened nearly four hundred years ago.
In the late 17th century, Whitehaven was being transformed from a small fishing village into one of England’s earliest planned “new towns” and a fast‑growing coal and trading port on the Irish Sea.
It was via the Irish Sea that Whitehaven gained a fascinating literary link.
In the winter of 1667, a woman gave birth to a boy in Hoey's Court in Dublin.
The boy was Jonathan Swift, and he went on to become the author of Gulliver's Travels in 1726.
However, Swift's life did not get off to an auspicious start, and it was a strange event which brought him to Whitehaven.
Swift's mother was widowed seven months before he was born, after his father reportedly died of syphilis which he said he contracted from "dirty sheets" when out of town.
It is believed Swift and his mother were supported financially by his uncle and his mother was able to employ a wet nurse.
Wet nurses were women who had recently given birth and were often used by families where the mother had died in childbirth or needed to work, to breastfeed their babies and offer childcare.
Upper class families also used wet nurses if mothers did not want to breastfeed, so having a wet nurse could be both a necessity or a luxury.
In an odd turn of events, Swift's wet nurse, is said to have become so fond of the baby that she abducted the one year old and took him back to her native Whitehaven on hearing news of a dying relative there.
When his mother found out he was missing, she is said to have made no attempt to get him back and even encouraged the nurse to keep him there.
Reports vary - some say Swift's mother thought he would be too "delicate" to manage the journey back to Dublin, others say that the man recorded as Swift's father was not in fact his biological father and the baby's presence in Ireland was an "embarrassment".
Swift remained in Whitehaven for three or four years, and it's believed this is where he learned to read the Bible before returning to Ireland aged about five years old.
A Grade II listed house at Harbour View, formerly known as the Bowling Green Inn, is claimed to be where Swift stayed during his time in Whitehaven, but records of his time in the town are scarce and it cannot be certain that he did stay there.
The building is now a private residence and named Jonathan Swift House.
Swift will be best known to many as the author of the novel, Gulliver's Travels.
The book follows Lemuel Gulliver, a practical English surgeon‑turned‑seaman, on four fantastical voyages that expose the follies and vices of human society through sharp satire.
Most famously the novel introduced readers to the tiny society of Lilliputians, known for their arrogant, cunning nature and satirical reflection of real political figures at the time.
Back in Ireland, Swift was educated at Kilkenny School and Trinity College, Dublin, then took Anglican orders and served mainly in Ireland, where he became dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1713.
He is also credited with having invented the name "Vanessa" which he included in the title of his 1726 poem, Cadenus and Vanessa.
The name is thought to have come from an affectionate name for a woman called Esther with whom Swift formed a romantic attachment in his younger years.
He combined the beginning of her Dutch surname "Vanhomrigh" with the pet form of Esther, "Essa" to produce the name, which continues to be a popular women's name today.
Swift moved between politics and the church throughout his career, writing satires on power, corruption and injustice, and spent his last years in poor health before dying in Dublin in 1745.
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