Isle of Lewis


The Isle of Lewis or simply Lewis is the northern part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island of the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides archipelago in Scotland. The two parts are frequently referred to as if they were separate islands. The total area of Lewis is.
Lewis is, in general, the lower-lying part of the island: the other part, Harris, is more mountainous. Due to its larger area and flatter, more fertile land, Lewis contains three-quarters of the population of the Western Isles, and the largest settlement, Stornoway. The island's diverse habitats are home to an assortment of flora and fauna, such as the golden eagle, red deer and seal, and are recognised in a number of conservation areas.
Lewis has a Presbyterian tradition and a rich history. It was once part of the Norse Kingdom of the Isles. Today, life is very different from elsewhere in Scotland, with Sabbath observance, the Scottish Gaelic language and peat cutting retaining more importance than elsewhere. Lewis has a rich cultural heritage as can be seen from its myths and legends as well as the local literary and musical traditions.

Name

The Scottish Gaelic name Leòdhas may be derived from Norse Ljoðahús, although other origins have been suggested – most notably the Gaelic leogach. It is probably the place referred to as Limnu by Ptolemy, which also means 'marshy'. It is also known as the Isle of Lewis. Another name usually used in a cultural or poetic context is Eilean an Fhraoich, although this refers to the whole of the island of Lewis and Harris.

History

The earliest evidence of human habitation on Lewis is found in peat samples which indicate that about 8,000 years ago much of the native woodland was torched to make way for plants to allow deer to browse. The earliest archaeological remains date from about 5,000 years ago. At that time, people began to settle in permanent farms rather than following their herds. The small houses of these people have been found throughout the Western Isles; in particular, at Dail Mòr, Carloway. The more striking great monuments of this period are the temples and communal burial cairns at places like Calanais.

About 500 BC, island society moved into the Iron Age. The buildings became larger and more prominent, culminating in the brochs – circular, dry-stone towers belonging to the local chieftains – which testify to the uncertain nature of life then. The best remaining example of a broch in Lewis is at Dùn Chàrlabhaigh. The Scots arrived during the first centuries AD, bringing the Scottish Gaelic language with them. As Christianity began to spread through the islands in the 6th and later centuries, following Columban missionaries, Lewis was inhabited by the Picts.
File:UigChessmen SelectionOfKings.jpg|thumb|left|Two kings and two queens from the Lewis chessmen at the British Museum
In the 9th century AD, the Vikings began to settle on Lewis, after years of raiding from the sea. The Norse invaders intermarried with local people and abandoned their pagan beliefs. At that time, rectangular buildings began to supersede round ones, following the Scandinavian style. Lewis became part of the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles, an offshoot of Norway. The Lewis chessmen, found on the island in 1831, date from the time of Viking rule. The people were called the Norse Gaels or Gall-Ghàidheil, reflecting their mixed Scandinavian/Gaelic background, and probably their bilingual speech. The Norse language persists in many island placenames and some personal names to this day, although the latter are fairly evenly spread across the Gàidhealtachd.
Lewis became part of Scotland once more in 1266: under the Treaty of Perth it was ceded by the Kingdom of Norway. Under Scottish rule, the Lordship of the Isles emerged as the most important power in north-western Scotland by the 14th century. The Lords of the Isles were based on Islay, but controlled all of the Hebrides. They were descended from Somerled Mac Gillibride, a Gall-Ghàidheil lord who had held the Hebrides and West Coast two hundred years earlier. Control of Lewis itself was initially exercised by the Macleod clan, but after years of feuding and open warfare between and even within local clans, the lands of Clan MacLeod were forfeited to the Scottish Crown in 1597 and were awarded by King James VI to a group of Lowland colonists known as the Fife adventurers in an attempt to anglicise the islands. However the adventurers were unsuccessful, and possession passed to the Mackenzies of Kintail in 1609, when Coinneach, Lord MacKenzie, bought out the lowlanders.
Following the 1745 rebellion, and Prince Charles Edward Stewart's flight to France, the use of Scottish Gaelic was discouraged, rents were demanded in cash rather than kind, and the wearing of folk dress was made illegal. Emigration to the New World increasingly became an escape for those who could afford it during the latter half of the century. In 1844 Lewis was bought by Sir James Matheson, co-founder of Jardine Matheson, but subsequent famine and changing land use forced vast numbers off their lands and increased the flood of emigrants again. Paradoxically, those who remained became ever more congested and impoverished, as large tracts of arable land were set aside for sheep, deerstalking or grouse shooting. Agitation for land resettlement became acute on Lewis during the economic slump of the 1880s, with several land raids ; this quietened down as the island economy recovered.
During the First World War, thousands of islanders served in the forces, many losing their lives, including 208 naval reservists from the island who were returning home after the war when the Admiralty yacht sank within sight of Stornoway harbour. Many servicemen from Lewis served in the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy during the Second World War, and again many people died. Afterwards, many more inhabitants emigrated to the Americas and mainland Scotland.
In May 1918 the Isle of Lewis was purchased by the soap magnate Lord Leverhulme, who intended to make Stornoway an industrial town and build a fish cannery. His plans were initially popular, but his opposition to land resettlement led to further land raids, especially around the farms of Coll, Gress and Tong. These raids, commemorated in monuments in several villages, were ultimately successful, as the government was prepared to take legal action in support of land resettlement. Faced with this, Leverhulme gave up on his plans for Lewis and concentrated his efforts on Harris, where the town of Leverburgh takes his name.

Historical sites

The Isle of Lewis has a variety of locations of historical and archaeological interest, including:
There are also numerous lesser stone circles and the remains of five further brochs.

Geography and geology

Much of Lewis consists of mostly sandy beaches backed by dunes and machair on the Atlantic west coast, giving way to an expansive peat-covered plateau in the centre of the island. The eastern coastline is markedly more rugged and is mostly rocky cliffs broken by small coves and beaches. The more fertile nature of the eastern side led to the majority of the population settling there, including the largest settlement and only town, Stornoway. Aside from the village of Achmore in the centre of the island, all settlements are on the coast.
Compared with Harris, Lewis is relatively flat, except in the south-west, where Mealaisbhal,, is the highest point, and in the south-east, where Beinn Mhor reaches ; but there are 16 high points exceeding in height. Southern Lewis also has a large number of freshwater lochs compared to the north of the island.
South Lewis, Harris and North Uist together comprise a National Scenic Area. There are four geographical Sites of Special Scientific Interest on Lewis – Glen Valtos, Cnoc a' Chapuill, Port of Ness and Tolsta Head.
The coastline is severely indented, creating a number of large sea lochs, such as Lochs Resort and Seaforth, which form part of the border with Harris, Loch Roag, which surrounds the island of Great Bernera, and Loch Erisort. The principal capes are the Butt of Lewis, in the extreme north, with hundred foot cliffs and crowned with a lighthouse, the light of which is visible for ; Tolsta Head, Tiumpan Head and Cabag Head, on the east; Renish Point, in the extreme south; and, on the west, Toe Head and Gallon Head. The largest island associated with Lewis is Bernera or Great Bernera in the district of Uig and is linked to the mainland of Lewis by a bridge opened in 1953.

Geology

The geology of Lewis is dominated by the Archean aged metamorphic gneisses of the eponymous Lewisian complex. Despite sharing a name with the mainland Lewisian Complex, the Lewisian on Lewis is often considered to be from a different block, generally interpreted as the lower plate of a orogeny, than most of the mainland examples of Lewisian. Exceptions are a patch of granite near Carloway, small bands of intrusive basalt at Gress and in Eye Peninsula and some sandstone at Stornoway, Tong, Vatisker and Carloway, which was originally thought to be Torridonian, but is now considered more likely to be Permo-Triassic in age. The North of the Island contains a Paleoproterozoic, predominantly amphibolite, supracrustal belt, the Ness Complex, which contains meta-anorthosite and has disputedly been correlated to the South Harris Granulite Belt.