Callanish
Megalithic Complex
NB 213 330
From Stornoway head SW along the A859 for about 5 miles. A brown sign pointing off to the right for Callanish and Dun Carloway. Follow this road and the site is well signed. Dogs are allowed on leads. The carpark stays open all night allowing sunset and sunrise visits – weather permitting. By the evening the site was deserted and it was light until gone 11.00pm but cloudy. Dawn at about 4.00am am and raining the first night here which gave an excuse to come back a few times to see wonderful sunsets and peaceful dawns.
The structure is quite complex and it is a wonderful site to visit. The stones are impressive not only for the sheer scale of the complex and their size but they also have a beautiful texture being Lewisean Gneiss – the oldest stone in the country.
The complex is in the form of a cross and consists of a stone circle, centre stone, an avenue, three rows and a burial chamber. They were constructed over various time scales. First the circle that is 11.4m (37.3ft) across made up of 13 stones averaging 3m (10ft) high with the tallest almost 4m (13ft). The center stone is magnificent and reaches 4.8m (15.75ft) in height and is the focal point of the site as well as this small, but visually powerful circle.
One of my favourite places
Some of the stones, including the centre stone and the tall avenue
terminal stone have dark lumps of hornblende crystals on them. The
southern stone row was constructed as well as the chambered tomb inside
the circle to the east of the centre stone before the avenue and west and
east rows. At a later time the burial chamber was stripped out and later
rebuilt.
The southern stone row is almost exactly north/south aligned and two rows run out from the circle to the east and west. Both rows have terminal stones set on end to the row. The eastern end stone was only recently discovered under the peat in 1977 and was re-erected in 1982. It is bleached white due to the action of the peat on it.
The avenue leads from the north to the circle. It has some gaps as several stones are missing. From an original 39 only 10 remain on the west side and 9 on the east. The terminal stone is a 3.5m (11.5ft) tall pillar and until recently was missing its top. Margaret Poynting, who wrote the very useful guides to Lewis sites, found it in a wall and had it rejoined. She also found the east row stone under the peat.
Just to the SW and NE of the circle are two stones that line up with special moon rises that only happen a few times every 18.5 years.
Views of the burial chamber
Evening light
Summer
2002