The Callanish Stones

Harris, day five

The Callanish Stones are perhaps the most famous visitor attraction on Lewis. It's a complicated site, consisting of three separate stone circles and some avenues of stones, believed to date back to between 2900 and 2600 BC, making them about the same age as Stonehenge. They are of a simpler construction, consisting of standing stones without any lintels.

It is believed to have been used as a Bronze Age ritual site and a little later a burial chamber was added, which was used for many centuries. The whole site fell out of use around 1000 BC and was then used for agriculture, being completely abandoned in around 800 BC and eventually buried under peat. It was cleared of peat in the late 1800s and taken into protective care.

The Gneiss markings make each stone very attractive and the whole site is quite awesome.

We were privileged to enjoy the sunset at the main stone circle, a powerful and beautiful experience, despite a little drizzle. Our final sunset of a memorable trip - most poignant...

Gneiss beaches

Harris, day five
We spent the afternoon in Lewis on a couple of (very Gneiss) beaches, one stony and one sandy. The local rock is Lewisian Gneiss, a metamorphic rock that, at 3 billion years old, is reckoned to be the oldest rock in Britain and one of the oldest in the world, two thirds the age of the earth. See HERE for a more detailed explanation. It is very attractive, with multi-coloured layers and patterns. I love pebbles, there's something so tactile about water-smoothed stone and I was tempted to put a couple in my pocket. (I know you shouldn't!) It was mainly the thought of my luggage allowance on the flight back that stopped me!

Wherever, there are stones, someone will have balanced a few...

I was fascinated by the patterns in the peaty water of a small stream running across the beach to the sea.

The preserved village

Harris, day five
On our trip to Lewis, we also paid a short visit to Geàrrannan blackhouse village. These traditional blackhouses were abandoned in 1974, when the residents were moved to more modern social housing nearby. They are only about 150 years old, but built in a very traditional croft style that was once common in the Scottish Highlands, Hebrides and Ireland. Since these at Geàrrannan were the last blackhouses in Lewis to be vacated and they sit in such an attractive setting overlooking a stony beach, the decision was taken to make this a conservation area. In 1991 a programme of restoration was undertaken. Now, there is a museum and some holiday accommodation within the carefully restored village, where modern amenities have been discreetly integrated.

The buildings have double-skinned drystone walls with earth packed between them, and roofs made of straw thatch and turf, anchored with ropes and stones to withstand the harsh Atlantic gales. Fires would have burned peat and originally the smoke was left to find its way out through the thatch. The houses are long and would have accommodated families at one end and animals at the other, separated by a thin partition.

The ruined croft

Harris, day five

On our last full day, we drove north to the adjoining island of Lewis. Both Harris and Lewis are dotted with abandoned crofts, left either as a result of depopulation or perhaps simply because the original residents moved into newer accommodation. Many of them are too dangerous and dilapidated to venture too close, but we did find one at Arivruaich that you could walk down to.

A once substantial dwelling, it was set in a small hamlet with a few other houses and a postbox. One wonders if the inhabitants mind the view of a decaying cottage?


For photographers, it was, of course, a dream location, with a sea loch behind and lots of details: sagging outhouses with rusty corrugated iron roofs...

... rotten window frames with sad fragments of lace curtains that must once have been chosen with pride...

... the decaying remains of a bathroom, the bath and sanitary ware still in situ, although the ceiling was caving in, the walls were bare and the floor was dangerously rotten...

... and of course, when man leaves, nature rushes in so that wild plants were recolonising the boggy ground.