Calanais

Top of my list of places to visit in the Western Isles were The Calanais Stones on Lewis.

It was a grey day so my photos aren't great - a bright blue sky would have made the stones stand out better.




The stones at Calanais are even older than those at Stonehenge.

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.

Extending north from the main circle is an avenue formed by a double row of stones, while single rows of stones extend roughly east, west and south from the main circle.

It is thought that the alignments of the various stones were used to mark significant points in the lunar cycle. The stone circle and the north avenue were probably built before 2000BC, while the three single lines and the tomb added around 1500BC.






















Tradition says that giants who lived on the island refused to be converted to Christianity by Saint Kieran and were turned into stone as a punishment. Another local belief says that at sunrise on midsummer morning, the "shining one" walked along the stone avenue, "his arrival heralded by the cuckoo's call." This legend could be a folk memory recalling the astronomical significance of the stones.

In 1984, the new romantic band Ultravox used an image of the stones on the cover of their album Lament. They also used the scenery to record the video of One Small Day, first single taken from that album.

A local inhabitant!



You can find out more about Calanais here.