Sir Chris Bonington

The contents of Everest summiteer Sir Chris Bonington’s shed will be preserved, with help from the British Mountaineering Council.

But it’s not lawnmowers  and weedkiller that will be saved for posterity, but the mountaineer’s memorabilia from a life at the top of his profession. The collection will be made available to the public and researchers.

A Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £39,000 will be bolstered by a donation of £15,000 from the BMC to enable the project, which will take a year. The collection will be available online and will also form a travelling display.

It will include press cuttings, correspondence, expedition papers and manuscript drafts.

Sir Chris said: “I have kept all the correspondence, papers and diaries from all of my expeditions over the last 48 years in a shed at the bottom of my garden. There is a rich history of some of the major mountaineering expeditions of four decades hidden in these files.”

The 74-year-old is probably Britain’s best known living mountaineer, having summited Annapurna and led the 1975 expedition which climbed Everest’s south-west face and was recounted in his book Everest the Hard Way.

Sir Chris continued: “I’m delighted that these are now going to see the light of day; will be sorted and indexed by Maxine Willett, the very able archivist of the Mountain Heritage Trust and, most important of all, will be made available to the mountaineering community and anyone wanting to research this element of mountain history.”

The Hampstead-born former Army officer now lives in Cumbria. He led the county’s Olympic launch last year with a walk to the summit of Scafell Pike with celebrated fellrunner Jos Naylor, to hoist the Olympic flag from England’s highest summit.