Montravers Great House, Nevis, St. Kitts and Nevis

5William P 5:00 PM Feb 20, 2020

Mountravers No Longer Open to the Public
The Mountravers ruins are now occupied by the Pinneys and no longer open to the public. However, the family does allow access through their property via the main access road, and to four historic dams on the property. Three of the dams can be accessed via a path just past the wooden gate that marks the western boundary of Mountravers Estate; and one dam can be accessed via a path just to the left of the the main entrance to Mountravers. The dams were built to supply water to the steam engines at Pinney’s Yard near the Manager’s House (further down the mountain, marked with a sign), with the first 10 HP non-condensing horizontal steam engine for milling sugar, and one engine for milling corn, ordered from George Latham & Co., London by Peter Thomas Huggins in 1820. Huggins’ father had purchased Mountravers from the Pinneys in 1815. The total cost of the order was £1,750, and records show that Huggins invested another £2,000 at his sugar works to accommodate the new technology. The sequence of dams served as a filtering system, with cast iron pipes leading from one to the next. A letter of 1825 complains of the corroding effect on the steam engines due to silt. These dams and steam engines were in continuous use until 1942, at which time sugar cultivation ceased on the Estate in favor of cotton and copra. The engines and boilers were sold off for scrap by Walter Wade soon after he purchased Pinney’s Estate in 1946.

3Heatheronhertravels 5:00 PM Nov 10, 2022

Could not access the estate ruins
Unfortunately we could not access the Montravers Estate ruins as there was a locked gate marked private. Not sure if there was another way in. We drove up the Four Seasons access road and parked near the villas then took an well used trail through the woods, over an old dam then the wooded path joined up with a stone access road. We followed the road but could only find a locked gate with a keep out sign. Not sure if the ruins can be accessed by following a track opposite the turning for PINNEY’S beach, as earlier comments suggest. We heard the owners have fenced around the property. I’d be interested to know if anyone is able to access it as coming from Bristol we were interested to see the old Pinney estate.