
10 July 2006 Margaret Curtis calls this site ‘mission control’, as it oversees most of the other “Callanish” sites. With a big lens, it’s easy to pick out Callanish I, II & III....
10 July 2006 Margaret Curtis calls this site ‘mission control’, as it oversees most of the other “Callanish” sites. With a big lens, it’s easy to pick out Callanish I, II & III....
11 July 2006 The remaining stone (badly!) cloned to show (very roughly) what the circle might’ve looked like. (See also joolio geordio’s pic taken at the same time).
11th July 2006
Taken from the back site the yellow and orange “markers” at intervals around the circle representing the location of the missing stones.
Margaret calls this site ‘mission control’.
Taken 1st August 2004: The top of the remaining standing stone at Airigh Na Beinne Bige, hairy with lichen.
In the distance is Loch Gainmhich.
Taken 1st August 2004: William inspecting part of a dead sheep. Fascinating stuff!
Taken 1st August 2004: Looking approximately south west.
William is helping me out by standing in what Margaret and Gerald Ponting describe as a ‘damp hollow’ representing a probably stone socket.
Evidence of a “massive” lightning strike has been found at the centre of a stone circle in the Western Isles.
A single large strike, or many smaller ones on the same spot, left a star-shaped magnetic anomaly at the 4,000-year-old site in Lewis.
Scientists made the discovery at Site XI or Airigh na Beinne Bige, a hillside stone circle now consisting of a single standing stone.
The site is at the famous Calanais Standing Stones.
Scientists said the lightning strike, which was indentified in a geophysics survey, could show a potential link between the construction of ancient stone circles and the forces of nature.
They said the lightning struck some time before peat enveloped the stone circle at Site XI 3,000 years ago. The discovery is detailed in new research published online.
Visited 31.5.12
The remaining standing stone is approximately 1.5 metre tall x 0.5 metre across.
The views from the stone are the best I have seen on Lewis – breathtaking.
They show Lewis at its best – both rugged and beautiful.
The sun darted in and out of clouds and lit up parts of the mountains in the distance.
I was in the right place at the right time for the light to reveal ‘Sleeping Beauty’ in all her glory. She was so clear and recognisable – the best I had seen her during my stay – watching over all that she surveyed.
The view set out in front of me had to be one of the highlights of my short but fulfilling stay on Lewis. Simply stunning.
Visited 1st August 2004: When I set out to find Airigh Na Beinne Bige I got lead on a wild goose chase by the GPS, wondering around in totally the wrong area. The following directions might save you from the same fate:
Follow the road inland from Breascleit until you come to a cattle grid. Immediately after the cattle grid park up (if you’re driving) and walk up the hill (approximately north). You’ll come to a ‘peat covered terrace’ below the summit of the hill. The remaining standing stone is relatively easy to spot, as is the larger of the two cairns.
William and I found the big cairn first, then the standing stone and the hollow. Will found the remains of a dead sheep at the foot of the stone fascinating. The views of the Callanish area are spectacular! We had fun taking photos of each other with the digital camera. It was what people would have once described as ‘a lark’.
Unfortunately I only spoke to Margaret Curtis after this visit, and it was then that I came to fully appreciate that Airigh Na Beinne Bige is widely accepted as a ruined stone circle. If you can’t speak to Margaret, read The Stones Around Callanish before you visit.
According to Historic Scotland this stone represents the remains of a stone circle. The record gives Margaret and Ron Curtis as one of it’s sources:
Survey work has established that the single standing stone, stone stumps, prostrate stones, other broken stones and packing stones at this site (DES 1976, 58) should be regarded as the remains of a stone circle. They mark the positions where eight standing stones once stood in a circle of about 51m diameter. The circle may have consisted of at least 13 standing stones. These eight positions are not continuous but extend along 7% and 39% of the perimeter.
Local knowledge records that in the 19th century this stone circle was used as a source of lintels for the houses shown on the 1853 1st edition OS map, at NB 2158 3508. There is still a metal wedge embedded in a crack in the remaining standing stone.
The area around the remaining standing stone is scheduled, and known to contain the remains of two burial cairns and a group of later shieling huts. Margaret Curtis (previously Ponting) has a stone axe that she found at the site (NB22233569) in 1976. There’s an excellent plan of the ruined circle in the book The Stones Around Callanish by the Pontings (ISBN: 0 903960 67 2).