Whitstable Fishermen's Memorial Bench
(2024)

Location : Seafront, Whitstable, Kent

Materials : Reclaimed Greenheart & Ekki

Funding : Whitstable Harbour Board

The commissioning of the bench was initiated by the Whitstable Fishermen's Association as a memorial to the fishermen of Whitstable.
It sits on the concrete base where Georgia Wright's Crab & Winkle Way Bench had sat since 1989. Her bench had been pushed over and as a consequence was damaged beyond repair. I contacted the harbour and we managed to save the wonderful carvings - depicting the journey of the Invicta steam engine journeying between Whitstable and Canterbury (the first passenger carrying railway in the world). The carvings are being kept safely stored, to be relocated elsewhere in the harbour at a future date.

Whitstable Fishermen's memorial 2024 (2).jpg

Whitstable Fishermen's Memorial Bench is made from left over groyne timber which had been stored on the west quay of the harbour for many years. It took some cleaning up! The design incorporates twelve uprights forming the back, referencing the passage of time. Carved on the uprights are a variety of the creatures that form the ecosystem of the waters around Whitstable, many of which are fished from the harbour. The seat can also be seen as a memorial to those creatures that are fished from the sea. The overall shape of the bench might suggest a shellfish, or the prow of a boat, a wave, or...?