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.