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.

Pastel tones

Harris, day four
We spent late afternoon on day four on Scarista beach, a long crescent of pale sand in the shadow of Ceapabhal. The beach faces north and the sunset unfolded gradually in a series of pastel hues. I was busy again with my ND filter to smooth the water. The top photo is without it and the one below is using it to give a 1.5 sec exposure. Sometimes I prefer one and sometimes the other!

As the light faded the hills of Taransay across the Sound were tinted pink:

The clouds, lit by the setting sun, were a gentle fire of blues, greys, corals and pinks:

The harbour

Harris, day four
A little further beyond the church is the village of Rodel, once the historic capital of Harris, situated around a harbour that used to host the Skye ferry. Those accolades now fall to Tarbert and Rodel is much more tranquil.

I really enjoyed taking a few 'mini-landscape' shots here. There was much to inspire me: old boats, rusty chains, knotted ropes, seaweed and lichen. Some lovely colours too...

For some reason I can't quite define, this shot of seaweed caught in a gap in the decaying harbour jetty is probably one of my favourite images of the whole trip. The shapes and colours just seem very pleasing to me. I think it's an archetypal feminine image in some senses - a bit Georgia O'Keefe, albeit not a delicate flower. 

St Clement's Church, Rodel

Harris, day four
By day four, I was ready for a variation in the Harris diet of sea, sky and rock so I was interested to explore the little church of St Clement in Rodel. It was built around 1520 as the burial place of the chieftains of the Clan MacLeod of Harris. The church was disused after the reformation in 1560, but continued to be used as a burial site. It has since had a number of restorations.

There is an elaborate tomb on one wall for the 8th Chief, Alasdair Crotach MacLeod, crowned with an arch and featuring carvings of the Trinity, other biblical scenes, a sailing galley, a hunting scene and the Chieftain himself in a knight's armour. There are other significant MacLeod tombs within the church and a series of tombstones from the 1500s and 1600s, decorated with ornate carvings of swords denoting high status, power and strength.

On the outside walls of the church there are more intriguing carved stones, including a figure in a kilt (left). The figure of the man (right) is known as 'The Lewd Man'.



There is also a 'Sheela-na-gig' - a female effigy (see below). There is a similar carving on a wall in Iona, which may indicate links between the two. It may depict the goddess of fertility, life and death, perhaps as a reminder to those entering the church that they are entering a sacred space, the womb of the goddess, or perhaps simply to ward off evil. (Pagan and Christian symbols are often interwoven in our medieval churches.)

The drystone boundary wall of the churchyard had symbols too: hearts and flowers - though much more recent, no doubt. They don't do that in Yorkshire! Adjacent to the churchyard was a small public toilet for visitors, apparently installed and cared for by the local community. It was really neat. It even had flowers and a visitors book! I loved Rodel. 

Luskentyre patterns

Harris, day four
One of the motivations that had me longing to visit Harris was seeing, some years ago, a series of photos taken at Luskentyre that had been printed on pearlised paper so that they shimmered. They were wonderful. Our best opportunity to see the incredible patterns of tide and sand was on the morning of day four of our trip, from the high viewpoint on the Seilebost side of the estuary. The tide was partly in (though I could never work out if it was on its way in or out!), giving shades of turquoise, grey and duck egg blue against the very light sand. Strands of seaweed made darker counterpoints, as did the flocks of birds feasting at the water's edge. Without binoculars, they were a little hard to identify but some were oystercatchers, some lapwing and some geese, though there were a few much smaller waders scurrying about as well. Hopefully these photos give at least some idea of how beautiful it was.

Early morning on the rocks

Harris, day four
I managed to drag myself out of bed on the fourth day to participate in the dawn shoot. (I'll never be a real landscape photographer!) We scrambled about on the rocks at Rubha Romagraich, not far from where we'd been the evening before. I like the photo below, even though it's an annoying composition and I want to move the hill.

The sun came up behind us, throwing a soft light on to the outline of Ceapabhal.

I also liked the effect and the colours in this ICM image:

Beach panoramas

Harris, day three
I discovered the panorama feature on my camera! The beautiful beach in the first shot is Tràigh Iar (where we went on our first afternoon). After we'd mooched about photographing Luskentyre beach (middle photo), we drove right round the estuary to the other side (third photo), past Seilebost where the tide had come in, and stopped for coffee at a brand new community enterprise centre, Talla na Mara, from where the top photo was taken. The centre is an exciting concept, designed to provide facilities for local residents, visitors and businesses. There is a restaurant, exhibition space, creative arts workshops and office space.

On the same site there were six new residential buildings, which appeared to have charging points for electric vehicles. I was a little surprised at that but perhaps I shouldn't be. Electricity is probably easier to access than vehicle fuel on Harris and the distances you'd need to drive are not huge on a small island. A lot of the older properties on Harris are functional, pebble-dashed bungalows, as well as many empty, derelict crofts. From what I can gather, the population plummeted by 50% since the 1950s and by 2007 35% of properties were holiday homes. It seems that there has been some fresh thinking and investment in the last ten years, resulting in an increase of 20% in the population of West Harris, and some very modern and innovative residential building projects. (See HERE for some examples, from the Skye-based design team that built the community centre).

And then there was another sunset, enjoyed from the dunes overlooking Seilebost:

Dunes

Harris, day three
The land edge of Luskentyre beach is a mass of sand dunes, held in place to some extent by marram grass. There were other plants too, like the pretty pinky mauve sea rocket (middle foreground of picture above). It's an interesting and challenging landscape to capture in photos. The shots I liked best were close-ups:

Some show interesting patterns in the sand. These are not the result of wet/dry patches or light/shadow but appeared to be produced by different tones of sand grains. Fascinating. 

I found a tiny toadstool too, which I think is a Dune Waxcap (Hygrocybe conicoides):

Maybe that is what gives the islanders the idea of putting bright orange corrugated iron roofs on their buildings. I'm glad they chose a blue front door here!