During a rare break in the weather last week we took a walk on Uig beach, the place where the Lewis Chessmen were discovered in 1831. This oak sculpture of the King was carved in 2006 by Stephen Hayward and erected on the path down to the sands.
Apparently, these views inspired the setting for Arthur Ransome's last (finished) Swallows and Amazons adventure, Great Northern?, when the author was a guest at nearby Uig Lodge in 1945 and '46.
Note the absence of people.
I remember the first time I was there, I just cried. It was a combination of the beauty, the space (even your wonderful photos don't quite convey that) and a sense of the geological age of the place. (The Hebrides contain some of the oldest rock on Earth, so old, there are no fossils because the rock was formed before there was any form of life.) Standing on Uig sands, I felt as insignificant as a grain of that sand, a part of something so temporally huge, it was impossible for my mind to grasp. It was very humbling.
I didn't know about GREAT NORTHERN. *Scurries off to look for a copy.*
Posted by: Linda Gillard | 31 July 2012 at 09:50 AM
It's an amazing place.
Posted by: Cornflower | 31 July 2012 at 10:33 AM
Gorgeous photographs Karen! Yet another place I would love to visit! I have an early Alice Starmore knitting book which has a pattern for a vest based on the Lewis Chessmen.
Posted by: Elizabeth Guster | 01 August 2012 at 05:40 AM
Alice Starmore is of course a native of the island - I wish she had a shop there so that you could see all her designs for real, but shops of any kind are few and far between on Lewis!
Posted by: Cornflower | 01 August 2012 at 10:51 AM
I cant let a mention of Arthur Ransome go by ;)
'Great Northern', was set in the Hebrides as you say and inspired my life-long obsession with looking for Divers in every loch we pass.
In commion with his series in the Lake District, the book's geography is a mélange of lochs & places in the West Coast and Hebrides - it's part of the fun trying to work out where they all are.
The Harris beaches are just a special place and we were lucky enough to see large numbers of elvers swimming up the river at Uig. (umm this was more than 25 years ago...)
Posted by: Sandy | 01 August 2012 at 01:51 PM