Objects Database

Lid from stove in Observatory Hotel on Ben Nevis

Accession Number

1007.2012.1

Object Name

Lid from stove in Observatory Hotel on Ben Nevis

Created

26/09/2012

Creator

Hermione Cooper

Accession Date

26/09/2012

Brief Description

Very rusty, heavy stove lid.

Materials

iron

Dimensions

19(diameter) cms

Number Of Objects

1

Colour

brown

Provenance

Bit of a curio this and about as unique as it gets, being the stove lid from the Observatory Hotel on Ben Nevis. Opened on 7th July, 1885 the Temperance Hotel was a few metres away from the Ben Nevis Observatory which had been built 2 years earlier to take weather recordings in the days before aeroplanes and satellites.
Ten shillings (50p) would get you dinner, bed and breakfast and for a total of 21shillings(£1.10) you could get all that plus a pony and a guide to the summit.
The hotel opened to cater for the Victorian tourist boom in the late 1800's and the West Highland Railway arriving in Fort William in 1894 which made Ben Nevis more accesible. It closed in 1916, the ravages of a World War taking its toll on men and tourists.
Some 90 years later our old pal, Ed Grindley, was rooting around in the foundations - they can still be seen in 2012 - and came across this stove lid which he subsequently gave to Mick Tighe just a few days before he died in 2010. Visually a piece of scrap iron - technically a fabulous link with the past.

Acquisition Method

Donated by Ed Grindley

Acquisition Date

26/09/2012

Condition Check Date

26/09/2012

Rules

Spectrum : UK Museum documentation standard, V.3.1 2007

Modified

26/09/2012

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