George Fisher set up his little Mountain Equipment Shop in Keswick, English Lake District in 1957 and amongst other innovative items, he commissioned a local engineering company to make these Square Eight Descendeurs (using the french spelling which was the ‘cool’ thing to do then).

George had created an earlier Figure of Eight which, amongst other things was not suited to the hawser laid ropes in use at the time. This version was – as George tells us – made of ‘special steel’

Aluminium versions quickly followed. They were lighter and cheaper to produce, so George’s pioneering device was quickly consigned to the history books and collections such as ours.

This particular one was briefly used by Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team for stretcher lowering.