Callanish on the Isle of Lewis

After I visit places such as Callanish I am always bewildered, as I am sure that I can’t satisfactorily answer any of the obvious questions – why was it built, how was it built, who built it, what was the reason for building it here rather than on any other hillock in the area? Even the question as to when the site was constructed is open to discussion.

Callanish comprises a number of different elements – a stone circle containing a central monolith and a chambered tomb, three rows of stones intersecting with the circle, and an avenue of stones heading roughly northwards away from the circle. All the stones are Lewisian gneiss and were quarried locally.

The stone circle consists of thirteen stones, with an average height of 3 metres. The circle is not quite perfect as the east side is slightly squashed. The circle covers an area of 124 square metres with a diameter of 11.4 metres. The circle was built between 2,900 BC and 2,600 BC making it slightly older than Stonehenge. 

The 6.4 metre long chambered tomb, in the central part of the circle, was almost certainly added after the circle was set up and was used for many centuries, as not only local pottery was found, but also Beaker vessels dating from 2000BC. 

The central monolith stands 0.8 metres west of the true centre of the stone circle. The monolith is 4.8 metres high and 1.5 metres wide. This stone is on an almost perfect north to south axis, making me wonder how people 5,000 years ago could align a 7-tonne stone so accurately.  

The avenue connects to the stone circle from the north-northeast and is just over 83 metres long. There are 19 stones remaining in the avenue: nine stones on the eastern side, ten on the western side. It’s tempting to think that some of the original stones might have been taken for building projects on the island as there seems to be no real consistency in the layout of the stones on the two sides of the avenue. The largest stone in the avenue is 3.5 metres high and stands on the western end of the row. The two rows are not parallel, but fan out the further away they get from the circle – at the north end the rows are 6.7 metres apart, but only 6 metres apart at the south end, nearer the stone circle.