June 16

Map of northern Scotland & the Hebrides

Leaving Scalpay and Harris for Lewis

A last look from Scalpay eastwards early in the morning, on the day we leave for Lewis.

Scalpay in the morning of June 16. View taken from just in front of Hirta House.	A detail of the field next to the road that was sprinkled with oodles of common spotted orchids and common bird's foot trefoil.

A view of the sea to the east on the morning we are leaving Scalpay and Hirta House

This is Harris, the way we'll remember it, barren hillsides and quaint little white houses.	A rocky piece of coastline as we are leaving stony Harris for greener Lewis.

The standing stones at Calanais (Callanish) on the Isle of Lewis
From the web site  Calanais  Undiscovered Scotland
"The area around Calanais is home to over 20 monuments erected between 3000 and 4000 years ago. Most famous by far is Calanais I, a complex arrangement of some 50 stones. At their heart is a circle of 13 stones between 8 and 13 feet tall, surrounding the tallest stone on the site, 16 feet high and weighing in at about 5.5 tonnes. Some time later a stone tomb was added to the centre of the circle."
From the Calanais Visitor Centre - The 5000 year old Calanais Stones are one of the most famous landmarks in the Western Isles and are situated on the west side of the Isle of Lewis.

This is the table showing the round setting of the stones and describing the use of it. "It was probably a burial chamber." and "It is thought to date to between 2000 or 1700 BC." There seems to have been a chambered cairn inside the ring of standing stones. An attempted reconstruction of the cairn is shown on the table.	Our first look at the stones at Calanais on this overcast day before we settle in at our new B&B close by. The highest stone is set inside the circle  stones.

As is shown here, there are a number of stones seemingly forming a passage way to the ring of stones.	John is showing the impressive size of the highest stone (16 ft), which is set inside the ring, but not centered.

View of Loch Roag from Calanais. From undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/lewis web site: "Loch Roag is the sea loch that bites deeply into the north west coast of Lewis, part of which envelops the island of Great Bernera. On the east shore of the loch the neck of a headland is home to the small linear settlement of Calanais, and, on a hump of land between the village and its jetty, the Calanais (or Callanish) Standing Stones."

We drove on to the island of Great Bernera on the south side of Loch Roag to visit the vestiges of the late iron age village that was once at Bostadh Beach at the very tip of the island. The web site by Tim Neighbour and Jim Crawford shows us what the site looked like in 1993:

"Preserved beneath the Norse levels, was a village of three Pictish `jelly baby' or figure-of-eight houses, filled with windblown sand and in-situ floor deposits. The village is thought to date from the mid to late 1st millennium AD. The houses shared a number of common architectural features. Essentially they were stone built structures with southern entrances, a central cell and at least one annex. They were designed to be largely subterranean: a sensible response to living in an unstable sand dune system, and as a consequence the walls survived to their full height." (from the same web site)

Quote from web site:

"In the spring of 1993, after a prolonged period of gales and high tides, there was storm surge around the Isle of Great Bernera, which sculpted a new face to the dune on the east of Bostadh Beach. A series of stone structures were exposed within this new face.

Rescue excavation, funded by Historic Scotland, was carried out by the Centre for Field Archaeology (CFA), University of Edinburgh under the direction of Tim Neighbour. Initially scheduled for four weeks in March 1996, the complexity of the site and the extraordinary state of preservation of the buildings and artefacts led to funding being provided for 13 weeks in total, spread over three seasons in 1996."

Today, there is not much left of the ring shaped structures.

Not much can be seen today of what was in 1993 clear remnants of ancient houses. Later storms have covered over with sand most of what was visible then.	View out to the sea from Bostadh Beach. (Might the name Bostadh Beach come from the  Scandinavian word 'bostad' = living quarters?)

Just above the beach, there is a replica Iron Age house open to the public. A picture of the replica and also a couple of the remnants of other iron age houses higher up in the glen can be seen in the picture at the geograph.co.uk web site

Bostadh beach, Great Bernera (geograph.co.uk) Under this beach are the remains of an Iron Age village, re-covered with sand after being studied by archaeologists so as to preserve it. In front of the beach is a replica Iron Age house open to the public. At the right hand side of the image can be seen the corner of the modern cemetery.	Our own picture of the reconstructed Iron Age house, where we spent a good long time with a woman guide and a couple of interesting and knowlegeable visitors. There was a homey-looking fire in the hearth in the middle of the room and she explained what the various nooks and alcoves might have been used for.