Calanais Visitor Centre

The opening of the new Calanais Visitor Centre at the end of June 1995, represented the culmination of ten years' endeavour and collaborative effort on the part of a number of agencies and individuals. The new facility, which cost with car-park and road improvements over £700,000, includes an exhibition with audio-visual commentary, shop and restaurant, and will be open throughout the year, Sundays excluded. Entrance to the Centre is free, and access to the Stones themselves is free, though there is a small charge for entry to the exhibition. A visitor centre was first proposed in 1984, following the purchase of the 200-acre estate at Calanais Farm by the University of Edinburgh. It was particularly appropriate, therefore, that the opening ceremony was performed by Donnie Munro, a former Rector of the University.

The new Visitor Centre nestles alongside the old farm of Callanish, which is now a University-owned research centre.

The original objectives of the project were listed in the 1984 Prospectus as threefold:

1. to promote archaeological fieldwork, including field survey and excavation, which by 1989 expressly included aerial survey and underwater survey, both of which had in practice been integral to the fieldwork programme from the outset,
2. to initiate a programme of experimental research into later prehistoric agriculture and building technology, in effect to create an island counterpart to the Butser experiment in lowland England,
3. to create an exhibition area with visitor services for the public, with a variety of educational and leisure opportunities.

These three objectives remained at the heart of the Calanais programme in the ensuing years, though by 1986, environmental studies had been added expressly to the research agenda.

From 1985, a programme of field survey and excavation had been launched in the Bhaltos peninsula in Uig parish, west Lewis, concentrating initially on the island dun at Loch Bharabhat, Cnip, and on the broch and later occupation at the Loch na Berie, Riof, where work is still in progress ten years later. Excavations were under the direction of Professor D. W. Harding, while underwater survey and excavation was directed by Dr T.N. Dixon in collaboration with the Scottish Trust for Underwater Archaeology. Fieldwork was generously funded by the General Council Trust of the University of Edinburgh, and by an anonymous donation to the University from a leading Scottish commercial organisation. Also on the Bhaltos peninsula, rescue excavation of the wheelhouse site at Cnip was directed on behalf of Historic Scotland by Dr Ian Armit, who also carried out important research excavations in North Uist as an offshoot of the Lewis initiative. More recently, survey and excavation have been undertaken at Calanais itself, by Dr Geraint Coles, and at Garenin on behalf of the Garenin Trust by Christopher Burgess.

The programme of experimental research began in 1985-6 with the construction of three experimental fields, the installation of an automatic weather-station, and a first season's crop of bere barley (hordeum vulgare), a traditional cereal crop in Lewis until recent times. Though successful as far as it went, the programme was suspended when the Research Fellow in charge, Dr Patrick Topping, was recruited by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and departed for another career. Plans are currently in hand for the revival of the experimental research programme.

By 1987, the proposal for a new Visitor Centre had been adopted by the Edinburgh Development Fund Campaign, the University's fund-raising arm, and locally on Lewis was being actively promoted by the Cearcall Chalanais, a Friends group chaired by the Procurator-Fiscal, Colin Scott-Mackenzie. From an early stage, the Highlands and Islands Development Board had been involved in discussions with the University regarding the proposals for Calanais. One outcome was the recognition that a feasibility study was required, and the construction of a business plan, and to this end, the University, the Western Isles Islands Council (Comhairle nan Eilean), Cearcall Chalanais and the Highlands and Islands Development Board commissioned a study by Mackay Consultants of Inverness, who reported in 1989-90.

By 1992, the proposals had been taken up by a Working Party of interested agencies, which, in addition to the University, included the Western Isles Islands Council, the Western Isles Tourist Board and Western Isles Enterprise (in lieu of the now-defunct HIDB), Historic Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage and representatives of the Calanais Residents' Committee. A Management and Interpretative Plan was now commissioned from the Centre for Environmental Interpretation of Manchester Metropolitan University, which reported in 1993. Between the various agencies, resources were generated to build the new Visitor Centre, with car park and upgraded access roads, at Calanais Farm, immediately adjacent to the University's Research Centre (see cover photographs of this Annual Report). With the imminent completion of the project, a Trust was created to manage the Visitor Centre and to promote its further development, under the chairmanship of Simon Fraser. The University of Edinburgh's nominated Trustee is Professor D. W. Harding, who had been responsible for the original prospectus of 1984.

Plans are now under discussion for further developments at Calanais. Though the Visitor Centre has not yet been operational for a full summer season, it is already enjoying considerable commercial success. The Trustees have considered in principle a proposal for the establishment of an archaeological service at Calanais, and for the development of the original plans for experimental and environmental reconstruction. In effect, the University's original plans, designed as an independent operation with research, educational and public objectives, have been subsumed within a collaborative endeavour, involving a number of agencies as well as the local community, to promote the collective interests of all concerned.

Reports on work undertaken in Lewis in 1995 by Christopher Burgess, Geraint Coles, Nicholas Dixon and Dennis Harding appear in Section 11, Research in Progress.