History of the Outer Hebrides

About 500 years later, but still predating Stonehenge, there are Calanais Standing Stones, also known as Callanish. Their use remains a mystery, but excavations offer clues: cleared woodland, pottery sherds from across the area, crops in the surrounding fields, additions of timber, a burial chamber, lines of stones leading to the cardinal points, and astrological lineups either by coincidence or design.

So, we might imagine a warm night some 4,000 years ago. It is late summer, and the setting sun’s rays have turned the surrounding cereal crops to amber. To the east, there’s a rounded hill that looks like a woman lying down and behind a full harvest moon rises as if the woman had given birth to it.  This is a good omen, a symbol of fertility for the harvest and the continuation of the tribe. Way to the south, visiting boats have been pulled up onto the seashores of Loch Roag, and a hubbub of voices, foreign words, and accents echo around the stones. Within the stone circle, perhaps the leaders or shamans are congregated while most people process through the long causeway from the north. You might overhear stories being told about ancestors travelling to these lands or events occurring around the last time the moon performed this trajectory. There’s excitement about beautiful beakers of food and fermented drinks, and many are keen to trade with the visitors as the celebration continues into the night. We wait for the moon to set through the stones to the south.

If you’re interested in astroarchaeology, the summer of 2025 will be the next 18.6-year lunar cycle when a low moon rises behind the hill “Cailleach na Mointeach” or “The Old Woman of the Moors” in the east and sets in line with the stones to the south.

Learn More About Calanais

The clans remained largely ungovernable until the Battle of Culloden when a military presence forced Jacobite sympathisers to forcefully forfeit their land to government-backed lairds (lords). This provided a compliant ruling class to implement the wide-scale and often violent clearance of people in the process of land reform.

The first 18th century wave saw many islanders removed from their fertile machair lands to unviable lots or crofts on rough ground, the worst example being on the east coast of Harris where the land is predominantly a bedrock of gneiss and very little is cultivable. The better land was selected for estate farms and sheep. Crofters were forced to supplement their income in the seaweed and herring trades. This set up trading routes to Glasgow and on to America in tobacco and sugar, facilitating migration south to work in the Industrial Revolution or emigration to America. When the herring and kelp markets collapsed in the 19th century, the lairds cleared more people, including the crofter who uncovered the Lewis Chess pieces. They brought in more sheep and created deer parks for sporting estates. By contrast, any crofter caught hunting or fishing salmon was charged with poaching. This century also saw potato famine, and many impoverished islanders emigrated, either forcibly or in search of a better life. As a result, clan and place names are found in Australia and North America. In Cape Breton, the Gaelic language and culture still thrive; some argue that it is better preserved than in Scotland, where it was stamped on. During the 150 years of land reform, some estimate as many as 20,000 souls left these islands.

The Hebridean Way has two routes, either a 156 mile walk or 185 mile cycle, which go from Vatersay right in the south to the Butt of Lewis in the north and require just two ferries. It was opened in 2017 and links roads and paths across 10 islands. Many sections are steeped in history discussed above, and there is plenty more to discover, like the Coffin Road on Harris, which was used to carry people from outlying crofts to their family burial grounds. Whether you do the whole route or just sections, it’s a fantastic way to appreciate the history, scenery and wildlife.