Hay's Way: Katharine visits the Calanais Stones on the Isle of Lewis

The Scotsman

Katharine visits the Calanais Standing Stones on the Isle of Lewis, another popular spot for visitors, but one that is struggling under the pressure of tourism to the island

Transcript

00:00Hello, so I've made it to Callowish Stones on the Isle of Lewis. It's one of the most

00:24popular sites that people come and visit when they're visiting the Outer Hebrides. So behind

00:29me you can see the Standing Stones. They date back, well, about 5,000 years and back to the

00:36Neolithic period and they actually also predate England's Stonehenge. But I mainly came here to

00:44talk about tourism and just how the site is keeping up in the face of more and more visitors

00:51coming to the island. And just walking around it's quite clear you can see where there's

00:56signs of erosion, where there's been a lot of people walking around the stones.

01:00And I was just talking to a local archaeologist who was saying that they are very concerned

01:07about the wear and tear on the site and apparently there are talks of maybe having to close it off

01:13just to allow some of the land to sort of regenerate and get back into a stronger position

01:17to accommodate all these people coming to visit. Interestingly, they also told me that they used

01:23to have heather around the stones which would have been more robust but that was removed to

01:30make way for kind of a grassy plain to make it more accessible for people to walk up to the

01:34stones and visit them. But it looks like that's, yeah, there's been an unintended consequence

01:40perhaps with the land around the stones just not looking very stable. As I said, just walking

01:47through I can see where the grass has kind of worn away quite a bit and it's muddy. So yeah,

01:54I can understand why people are a bit concerned and want to perhaps talk about closing it off

01:58for a period of time just to allow the land to regenerate. There's also a bit of a worry that

02:05there's a new visitor centre being developed which means that the current one is closed.

02:10It also means that one of the two entrances to the site will be shut over next year whilst the

02:15building work is taking place and locals were telling me they're a bit concerned about the

02:20congestion that will happen at the entrance that remains open because it's already heavily

02:27congested in the summer when a lot of people come. So limiting people to just one entrance is going

02:32to cause problems they said. So yeah, it's just interesting to come here and I've just been

02:38walking through the Highlands over August and September where there are similar concerns about

02:43local infrastructure and whether it's capable of supporting tourists to these more rural areas.

02:52On the Isle of Lewis specifically, the port at Stornoway has been developed so

02:56it's going to be able to accommodate larger cruise ships coming in which means more visitors.

03:02And a few people I've spoken to said yes, one option is to kind of improve the infrastructure,

03:07for example build bigger roads to accommodate these buses and camper vans. But there are also

03:12people who say that's not what they want to happen. Mitigating the effects of tourism

03:19needs to come from the source rather than the island having to respond and develop

03:25which would end up changing quite a lot of why people like to come here.

03:31That being the single track roads, the less developed areas, it's something that

03:38gives the island its charm and makes it distinct from other places in the UK and around the world.

03:44So yeah, I'm going to be staying on the island a little bit longer for a few more days and then

03:48I'll head down to Harris and hopefully visit Uist as well just to carry on documenting and hearing

03:55the important conversations that are going on in these island communities. As always you can

04:01find my stories on the Scotsman website under a section called Hay's Way and I also have an

04:06Instagram page where I add pictures and anecdotes of my trip which I've been doing for the last

04:12seven months now which you can find by searching at rural underscore cat with a k.

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