Callanish Stones

The Calanais Stones — Tursachan Chalanais in Gaelic, long known in English as Callanish — stand on a low ridge on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, above the sea inlet of Loch Roag with the island of Great Bernera behind them. They were raised around 2900 BC, in the Neolithic, earlier than the main stone monument at Stonehenge, and the site remained a focus of ritual for something like two thousand years before it was abandoned and slowly buried under peat.

The plan is unlike any other stone circle in Britain. At the centre, a ring of thirteen stones surrounds a single monolith 4.8 metres tall. From this circle an avenue of two parallel rows — nineteen stones survive — runs off to the north, while shorter single rows project to the east, south and west, so that from above the monument forms a rough, elongated cross. All the stones are Lewisian gneiss, among the oldest rocks exposed anywhere on Earth, and their surfaces are banded and streaked with grey, white and pink, each slab thin and blade-like, many leaning at their own angle. At the foot of the central stone lies a small chambered cairn, inserted later and used for burials; pottery from it includes beaker vessels of the late third and early second millennia BC.

Nobody knows exactly what the monument was for. One long-debated idea links it to the moon: every 18.6 years, at the extreme of its cycle, the moon travels very low along the southern horizon here, and some archaeologists argue that the builders framed that event. Whatever its purpose, the setting was part of the meaning. The stones stood buried to a depth of about 1.5 metres until 1857, when the island's owner, James Matheson, had the peat cleared and revealed their full height. Excavations in 1980–81 traced the earlier history of the site, and nearby stand several smaller circles and alignments — Callanish II and III among them — that make this corner of Lewis one of the densest prehistoric landscapes in Scotland.

Come in low light, early or late, when the gneiss catches the sun and the stones cast long shadows across the heather; from the small hill of Cnoc an Tursa beside the circle the whole arrangement can be read at once against the water of Loch Roag.

Getting there

The stones stand by the village of Calanais on the west side of the Isle of Lewis, about 13 miles (21 km) west of Stornoway by road. Stornoway Airport (SYY) is about 24 km away. Bus W2 runs from Stornoway bus station to Calanais village, Monday to Saturday, taking about half an hour. The stones are in the care of Historic Environment Scotland, and the visitor centre beside them is run by the local trust Urras nan Tursachan.