Day 25 - August 5, 2022 - Isle of Lewis

- August 05, 2022

During breakfast this morning we docked in Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides, Isle of Lewis. After breakfast we boarded our bus for visits to several sites

The M/V Corinthian at rest.

The scenery was beautiful, as usual. Again we were enjoying great weather mostly, but it can change very quickly in the islands.

Our first stop was at Dun Carloway . A broch situated in the district of Carloway, on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, Scotland . It is a remarkably well preserved broch – on the east side parts of the old wall still reach to 9 to almost 30 feet tall.

I have talked about brochs before. This is a good view of the inner/outer wall.

This was constructed about 2000 years ago

Our next stop was at Gearrannan, for the Blackhouse Village. Since 1989 the local community trust Urras nan Gearrannan (the Garenin Trust) has been painstakingly restoring the once derelict properties and croft land.

Traditional methods have been used to recreate the drystone masonry and thatched roofing of the original croft houses

These houses were called black houses due to the smoke which coated the roofs and inside walls from burning peat. Also, later houses of a different type were called white houses.

These houses have double walls with the space between filled with earth for insulation. This type of house was built from the late 1700''s until the late 1800's. Many of these houses were lived in up until the mid 1970's. This type of construction was very efficient for this climate.

Our final stop for the day was at Calanais Standing Stones.

The Callanish Stones are an arrangement of standing stones placed in a cruciform pattern with a central stone circle. They were erected in the late Neolithic era, and were a focus for ritual activity during the Bronze Age.

The stone circle was set up between 2900 and 2600 BC.[3] It is not clear whether the stone alignments were constructed at the same time as the circle, or later.

The existence of other monuments in the area implies that Callanish was an active focus for prehistoric religious activity for at least 1500 years.

The inner stone circle.

Mountain Goat Carl, coming down the back trail from the stones.

After returning to the ship for lunch and a brief rest, we a little over a half mile through town and up a trail to Lews Castle.

Lews Castle is a Victorian era castle located west of the town of Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland. It was built in the years 1844–51 as a country house for Sir James Matheson who had bought the whole island a few years previously with his fortune from the Chinese Opium trade. Well, the illicit drug trade was lucrative even in the mid 1800's.