A rumour that a former Prime Minister once visited a Highland Perthshire hotel has been proved after a 120-year-old guest book came to light.
Staff at Fisher’s Hotel in Pitlochry have always believed that William Gladstone once stayed there in the late 19th century but were unable to confirm the story was anything other than an anecdote.
However after they renamed the hotel bar “Gladstone’s” in his honour, they were offered an ancient tome which removed any doubt as to whether he had indeed visited.
An entry dated July 21 1892, signed by Gladstone, showed he stayed with his wife and daughter.
However upon probing more deeply into the pages, hotel manager Brian Wishart discovered the signature of Dunfermline-born philanthropist Andrew Carnegie – who signed just days before Gladstone, on July 8 1892.
Brian said: “We were doing some internal changes in the hotel and we changed our bar to a whisky bar and decided to change it to Gladstone’s on the basis that he stayed here many years ago. We had no proof that he did – it was anecdotal.
“A local antique dealer was driving past and saw the sign and he later came in with this book – the hotel’s visitor book from the 1890s. He said it had Gladstone’s signature in it.
“Gladstone stayed with his wife and daughter but having looked further into the book we saw a few other signatures, including Andrew Carnegie.
“We believe there might be one or two other significant signatures in the book and the owner’s daughter is going to have a proper look at the book.
“We are at the stage of trying to get a unit to put it in as the pages are particularly fragile, so we don’t want people leafing through it.”
He added that the hotel was going to rename two rooms after the famous pair but may not be able to match them to the rooms they actually stayed in, as since 1892 the hotel has expanded from around 40 rooms to 140.
He said: “We are going to rename a couple of the bigger bedrooms in the hotel – one will be the Gladstone suite and another Carnegie suite.
“It’s difficult for us to prove exactly what bedrooms they stayed in – although the book has the number of the room they stayed in tracing that back to which room that was at the time would be very, very difficult. We are going to try but I don’t know if ultimately we will be successful.”
