The wee cairn at the foot of the stone.
Image credit: drew/A/B
Images
Someone, somewhere, in summer time...........somewhere, out there is St Kilda.
Image credit: drew/amj
The Sound Of Taransay behind.
Image credit: drew/A/B
view over the top, due west, and a very clear st kilda in the distance, it had a covering of snow on it too! when a line is drawn from macleods stone to the taransay stone, then a line from macleods stone to scarasta stone it is a wee bit more than a right angle, but due west is exactly in the middle of the resulting angle, and thus directly points to st kilda!
Image credit: michael dunbar
crisp clear winter day, fantastic visibility, looking due west
Image credit: michael dunbar
Looking across a stormy Traigh Iar to the standing stone Clach Mhic Leòid. Evocative. Next day brilliant sunshine bathed the equisite Harris coastline.......
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image credit: © Brian Kerr 2007
Looking across the Sound to Taransay. Beautiful.
Nov 06
Mark takes a breather
Nov 06
Nov 06
All of the stones round here seem to be covered by this amazing lichen.
Taken 5th August 2004: Clach Mhic Leòid viewed from the north east, with Gob an Tobha (Toe Head) in the distance.
I’ve no idea what William thinks he is (some sort of super hero I’m guessing) but for the purposes of scale, he was 108cm tall at the time.
Image credit: Simon Marshall
Taken 5th August 2004: Clach Mhic Leòid viewed from (very approximately) the south west.
Image credit: Simon Marshall
3.2m high but sloping away from you here.
Without the sun or St Kilda this was my best guess at the suggested astronomical alignment.
Dominating the hillock, the stone defies the elements
Macleods stone looks out over the Sound of Taransay
On harris just across the sound of taransay is this stone clach mbic leoid, it seems to have at least some connection with clach an teampaill, incidentally the nearby beached are rather wonderful, at least on a good day.
Articles
Walking further westwards on the A859 from the Coire Na Feinne Chamber Cairn we jumped the fence at the next cattle grid to head north over the dunes towards the MacLeod Stone. A few days before I’d been looking at several sites in the area but ran out of time but not today. Although we were all tired, even B, we plodded on to be re-invigorated when crossing the ridge to see the massive standing stone.
Not many people mention the possible wee cairn that surrounds the stone. There are at least two kerbs still earthfast in an area that has a scatter of stones almost 6m wide. Canmore says there isn’t enough evidence but ever the optimist I’d like to think there had been a cairn at some point. One thing for sure is the fact that the stone can be seen for miles away coming in from the Atlantic.
Fantastic stone, fantastic scenery, fantastic day and some sun burnt legs!
Visited 3/8/2017.
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Visited 29.5.12
The ’24 hour bug’ which was affecting Karen and Sophie earlier on in the day was now starting to affect me. After a lovely couple of hours on the beach I could see the standing stone from the roadside; away in the distance on the headland.
The lay by with the bench next to it is still there but the sign for the stone has gone.
To be honest I didn’t feel up to walking out to the stone and was going to settle for a long distance view with my binoculars but after some prompting from Karen I decided to go for it!
It is a 10 minute walk to the stone but across the sand dunes it is wearing on the legs. On the way back I took the easier route along the beach. By the time I got to the stone I was knackered but it well worth it.
The stone is about 4 metres tall and 1.5 metres across. The seaward side of the stone is covered in ‘hairy’ green lichen.
Although the stone is well worth a visit in its own right it is the scenery which captivates you. Harris has to be the most beautiful island I have ever been to. Blue sky, turquoise crystal clear water and white sandy deserted beaches – pity the water is so cold!
Both the Macleod stone and the nearby Sgarasta stone are well worth visiting when on Harris. Do it – do it now!!
I have driven past this stone on previous visits to Harris but this was the first time I got to see it up close and personal. There is a sign on the road for parking, with a bench by it. Park here and then make your way across the beach and up the sandy headland...it initally looks closer than it is and with the wind howling around us we were knackered by the time we reached the stone. But it was worth it. The views across to Taransay were amazing and the stone is another of those skinny Hebridean ones which shouldn’t still be still be standing after all of these years.
Visited 5th August 2004: We approached this one all wrong. It was entirely my fault as well. We parked on the wrong side of the stream near the picnic area, and had to paddle across where the water was shallow. Then we worked our way up the headland, past some serious sand extraction quarries, up to the top then down towards Clach Mhic Leòid. It was an interesting route, but not ideal for the kids. There was a fence to get over before we got to the stone, and at this point I realised we should have done it all differently (presumably parking near the cattle grid).
The stone is big and macho. The views are splendid, but we weren’t blessed with sunshine. There’s a weird sort of notch in the top of the stone (like an inverted arrow), and I couldn’t help but wonder whether it’s an original feature. It could equally be the result of a lightning strike. A ‘must see’ if you’re on Harris, but not as charming as Sgarasta.
Harris is a peculiar place, full of extremes. On the west coast are beaches which surely match the finest on earth, yet on the east and in the north, the landscape is barren and rocky. Stanley Kubrick in filming his masterpiece 2001 A Space Odyssey used the rocky terrain of Harris as a double for Mars. Testament indeed to the out worldly nature of the place.
Across one of the beaches on the west side there is a signpost directing the traveller to a place known as ‘The Macleod Stone’. An impressive monolith perched on a hilltop looking out over to Taransay, the island made famous by the BBC’s Survivor programme.
To get there is no chore although the beach does seem to stretch forever and apart from sinking in the soft sand and leaping over the odd channel it’s a pleasant trip. However, this is Harris, a place renowned for its unpredictable weather. As we reached the stone, the wind started to howl and the rain buffeted down. We took our pics and struggled back to the roadside fighting the elements.
The island of Harris is blessed with many fine sandy beaches. The Macleods stone is signposted from the road and is situated atop a hilloch looking out onto the bay of Traigh Lar.
A local farming family set up this huge standing stone, probably over 5,000 years ago. For the people who erected it, this stone represented their links with the land and their ancestors. They wouldn’t have been known as MacLeods – that is a much more recent association.
The standing stone gave out a clear message: this land is well-used, it is ours and has been for generations. This was a rich land when Clach Mhic Leòid was erected in the prehistoric Neolithic period. The landscape was one of small-scale agriculture and open woodland. Any rough grazing or peat was confined to the high hills, and even the sea was some distance away.
Tradition sometimes associates standing stones with burials but archaeologists rarely, if ever, find contemporary evidence of burials at the base of single stones. It wasn’t until around 4,500 to 3,800 years ago, in the later Neolithic and early Bronze Age, that individual burials became common-place.
Nevertheless, it is possible that Clach Mhic Leòid continued to be important to the local people, even as times and beliefs changed. There are a number of large stones showing through the turf close to this magnificent slab. Was the area eventually used as a place of burial? Without archaeological investigation we will never know. Nevertheless, the medieval naming of the stone, Mhic Leòid, reflects valued links with the distant past.
The MacLeods of Harris and Dunvegan were the clan chiefs who held Harris from the 13th or 14th centuries until the late 1700s. Perhaps the clan name was given to this standing stone to link the MacLeods to long-departed ancestors, real or imaginary, and thereby emphasise their right to power over the land and the people.
By Jill Harden
From Prehistoric Harris (1) by M & R Curtis
“It has been suggested that this stone was erected by prehistoric man as part of a calendrical system: at the equinoxes the sun sets exactly due west over St Kilda, as seen from the stone.”
Sites within 20km of The Macleod Stone
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Horgabost
photo 4 description 1 -
H141 – Horgabost
photo 3 description 1 -
Horgabost – H10
photo 5 description 1 -
Coire na Feinne
photo 14 description 5 -
Borve Burial Cairn
photo 6 description 1 -
Borve Chamber Cairn
photo 11 description 1 -
Dun Borve
photo 20 description 2 -
Scarista S-51
photo 2 description 1 -
Scarista – S56
photo 2 description 1 -
Sgarasta
photo 13 description 8 -
S64, Scarista
photo 9 description 1 -
S70, Scarista
photo 10 description 1 -
Taransay
photo 3 description 1 -
Toe Head
photo 11 description 2 link 1 -
Carn An MacAskill
photo 5 description 1 -
Kyle’s Cairn
photo 4 description 1 -
Rubha Charnain
photo 16 forum 1 description 1 -
Dun Innisgall
photo 12 description 1 -
Clach Na Greine
photo 4 description 1 -
Dun Boraigeo
photo 8 description 1 -
Loch Bhalairiop
photo 3 description 1 -
Dun Stuaidh
photo 16 description 1 -
Rodelpark
photo 15 description 3 -
Roghadal
description 2 -
Rodel R141
photo 2 description 1 -
Loch an Duin (Scalpay)
photo 5 description 1 link 1 -
Cnoc Na Greana
photo 6 description 1