Ben Nevis the summit only to find "fragments of earthen and glass ware, chicken bones, corks, and bits of paper". It was not until 1847 that Ben Nevis was confirmed by the Ordnance Survey as the highest mountain in Britain and Ireland, ahead of its rival Ben Macdhui. The summit observatory was built in the summer of 1883, and would remain in operation for 21 years. The first path to the summit was built at the same time as the observatory and was designed to allow ponies to carry up supplies, with a maximum gradient of one in five. The opening of
Norse activity in the British Isles in the country. For this reason, historian Peter Hunter Blair noted that in Britain, the archaeological evidence for Norse invasion and settlement was "very slight compared with the corresponding evidence for the Anglo-Saxon invasions" of the 5th century. Norse activity in the British Isles Norse activity in the British Isles occurred during the Early Medieval period when members of the Norse populations of Scandinavia travelled to Great Britain and Ireland to settle, trade or raid. The Norsemen who came to the British Isles have been generally referred to as Vikings, but it is debated whether the term "Viking" represented all