Islands of Scotland by Pat Morgan

Author:Pat Morgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: G2 Rights Ltd

Replica Iron Age house at Bostadh, Great Bernera

Callanish standing stones, Lewis

Stornoway is the third largest town in the Highlands area of Scotland after Inverness and Fort William. It was founded by Vikings in the ninth century, under the name of Stjórnavágr, around a natural, sheltered harbour and today is the centre of a fishing industry that is, however, much reduced from its 19th century heyday. Ferries run from Stornoway to Ullapool on the Scottish mainland and there are regular flights to Scotland’s major cities, but there has been recent talk of a submarine tunnel linking Lewis and the mainland. If it is ever built it will be, at 65 kilometres, the world’s longest road tunnel by some distance.

Stornoway’s oldest building might be an 18th century net loft on North Beach Quay, although St Peter’s Episcopal Church boasts an ancient sandstone font that was fetched over from the Hermit’s Chapel on the Flannan Isles, more than 30 kilometres to the west. The church’s Tower Bell dates back to 1631 and in the vestry can be found the explorer David Livingstone’s 1608 Bible. Despite this antiquity and its remoteness from the centres of European civilisation, Stornoway is a modern place whose bustling streets come as quite a surprise to some visitors.

Another centre of population is to be found in the Eye Peninsula to its east. On the north shore of the isthmus connecting Eye and Stornoway is a 14th century church whose graveyard contains the bones of 19 MacLeod chiefs. From the other side of the town, roads head westwards towards Loch Roag and northwest, across moorlands, to Barvas. This is prime peat-cutting territory where hundreds of tiny lochs pit the landscape. One of Europe’s best salmon rivers can be found at Abhainn Grimersta, and here you are not far from the lobster fishing island of Great Bernera, which lies in Loch Roag and is accessible by a road bridge.

Around 250 souls inhabit this island of over 2,000 hectares, and its people haven’t always been able to live peaceful lives. Great Bernera is known for a riot, in response to the Highland Clearances, that shook Scotland in 1874. This resulted in the first successful legal challenge to landlordism in the Highlands and Islands and paved the way for land reform. Another violent occurrence was averted when the first pre-stressed concrete bridge was built in 1953 to connect the island to Lewis. Its construction came as a result of the islanders threatening to blow up a hillside to form a causeway.

Great Bernera has further historic treasures to offer. One is the semicircle of standing stones facing across the strait to Lewis and known as Callanish VIII, with the ruins of Dun Barraglom broch nearby. Another is an Iron Age, perhaps Pictish, settlement at Bostadh, discovered in 1992 and now covered with sand in order to preserve it. A replica Iron Age house nearby gives an idea of what lies beneath the sand.

Back on Lewis, travelling west to the bay of Uig will bring you to the scene of a truly remarkable discovery.

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