Qualla: Callanish IV

Callanish IV: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nessy-Pic, CC BY-SA 3.0. Five stones still stand. There may once have been thirteen. Two miles southeast of the great cross-shaped megalithic site of Callanish, this smaller circle sits 180 metres off the unfenced B8011 road, half-hidden in the peat and the grasses around it. No archaeologist has ever excavated here. The Royal Commission surveyed the site in 1914, an independent team came in the 1970s, the Commission returned in 2009 - and that is the sum of what has been done to a monument that has stood here, by every reasonable estimate, for around four thousand years. Sometimes leaving a place alone is the most respectful thing scholarship can do.

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Image: Nessy-Pic | CC BY-SA 3.0

Callanish IV: A Circle Among Circles

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kristi Herbert, CC BY 2.0. Callanish IV - the Romans never came here, but the antiquarian numbering scheme catalogues this monument as the fourth of the Callanish group - lies near the small settlement of Garynahine on the west coast of Lewis. At its centre is a dilapidated cairn; to the southwest, the sto...

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Image: Kristi Herbert | CC BY 2.0

Callanish IV: Why It Was Scheduled

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrew Gray, CC BY-SA 4.0. Callanish IV became a scheduled monument in 1992, under Scottish law that gives the highest legal protection to sites of national importance. The protected area is irregular - the longest aspect runs 410 metres north-south - and it covers far more than the visible cairn. Historic...

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Image: Andrew Gray | CC BY-SA 4.0

Callanish IV: The Group Across the Moor

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marta Gutowska, CC BY 2.5. Callanish IV is one of more than a dozen stone circles, alignments, single stones and cairns scattered across this corner of west Lewis - a sacred landscape laid out across several square kilometres around the village of Calanais. The main site, Callanish I, is one of the most sp...

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Image: Marta Gutowska | CC BY 2.5