Inverewe Garden and the Standing Stones of Callanish, Scotland
The remarkable itinerary of our voyage around the outer British Isles continued today with stops at an exotic garden in the Scottish Highlands and a megalithic monument to the moon in the Outer Hebrides.
Here at latitudes similar to Labrador and Siberia, palms, bamboo, tree ferns and other unlikely plants flourish. Courtesy of a wet and warm Gulf Stream-influenced climate and a century and a half of dedicated care, Inverewe Garden maintains an astounding array of exotic flora. Pines so rare they were first identified by fossils, towering rhododendrons, ‘industrial rhubarb’ with the world’s largest leaves, ‘weeds’ forty feet high and a phantasmagoria of flowering species dwell on slopes above the Loch of Ewe. Data at Inverewe over the past forty years, however, shows a warming and moistening climate, and the passionate master gardeners are concerned that melting ice and a potential inflow of cool Arctic waters will climatically challenge their collection of exotic vegetation.
After garden tours and kayaking in still loch waters, we crossed The Minch (a body of water with a name to make Dr. Suess proud) from Ewe to Lewis. Manx shearwaters, guillemots, and gannets flew our way out towards the Outer Hebrides. Upon a hillside peninsula on the Isle of Lewis stands the megalithic masterpiece, the Standing Stones of Callanish. This lunarly-aligned Hebridean ‘henge’ is the centrepiece of a series of standing stone circles in the area. The hills to the south are said to resemble a reclining woman in profile. Looking across the landscape about us, we imagined the ritual framework within which the pre-history people who erected this incredible monument might have lived.
The 5000-year old open air rock temple consists of tall and slender oblong slabs of swirling gneissian granite, laid out in a central circle, bisected by a north-south avenue and a short east-west axis. Callanish is often said to be in the layout of the Celtic cross and has been described as a Druidical temple, but it pre-dates the Druids by a millennium and Christianity by three. The gnomon stone in the circle has also been likened to a ship’s rudder to indicate a safe harbour for the seafarer. The giant stones and their secrets have been preserved in peat that accumulated about them during wetter times. In the late 19th century, the peat was cut out for fuel, restoring the stones to their intended height.
Ancient Greeks spoke of a temple in ‘Hyperborea’ and its astronomical alignment to a horizon-skimming southern moon. Here at Callanish’s high northern latitudes, the moon rolls along the southern skyline in dramatic fashion at the climax of an 18.6-year cycle of varying rising and setting points on the horizon. In the darkening twilight, we imagined nocturnal ceremonies of that might have been held within the circle of stones on this hillside with sweeping views. As our last Zodiac departed the archeo-astronomical site, the full moon rose to the south as if on cue, the stones standing in time and the mystery and legacy of an ancient megalithic culture carried on.
The remarkable itinerary of our voyage around the outer British Isles continued today with stops at an exotic garden in the Scottish Highlands and a megalithic monument to the moon in the Outer Hebrides.
Here at latitudes similar to Labrador and Siberia, palms, bamboo, tree ferns and other unlikely plants flourish. Courtesy of a wet and warm Gulf Stream-influenced climate and a century and a half of dedicated care, Inverewe Garden maintains an astounding array of exotic flora. Pines so rare they were first identified by fossils, towering rhododendrons, ‘industrial rhubarb’ with the world’s largest leaves, ‘weeds’ forty feet high and a phantasmagoria of flowering species dwell on slopes above the Loch of Ewe. Data at Inverewe over the past forty years, however, shows a warming and moistening climate, and the passionate master gardeners are concerned that melting ice and a potential inflow of cool Arctic waters will climatically challenge their collection of exotic vegetation.
After garden tours and kayaking in still loch waters, we crossed The Minch (a body of water with a name to make Dr. Suess proud) from Ewe to Lewis. Manx shearwaters, guillemots, and gannets flew our way out towards the Outer Hebrides. Upon a hillside peninsula on the Isle of Lewis stands the megalithic masterpiece, the Standing Stones of Callanish. This lunarly-aligned Hebridean ‘henge’ is the centrepiece of a series of standing stone circles in the area. The hills to the south are said to resemble a reclining woman in profile. Looking across the landscape about us, we imagined the ritual framework within which the pre-history people who erected this incredible monument might have lived.
The 5000-year old open air rock temple consists of tall and slender oblong slabs of swirling gneissian granite, laid out in a central circle, bisected by a north-south avenue and a short east-west axis. Callanish is often said to be in the layout of the Celtic cross and has been described as a Druidical temple, but it pre-dates the Druids by a millennium and Christianity by three. The gnomon stone in the circle has also been likened to a ship’s rudder to indicate a safe harbour for the seafarer. The giant stones and their secrets have been preserved in peat that accumulated about them during wetter times. In the late 19th century, the peat was cut out for fuel, restoring the stones to their intended height.
Ancient Greeks spoke of a temple in ‘Hyperborea’ and its astronomical alignment to a horizon-skimming southern moon. Here at Callanish’s high northern latitudes, the moon rolls along the southern skyline in dramatic fashion at the climax of an 18.6-year cycle of varying rising and setting points on the horizon. In the darkening twilight, we imagined nocturnal ceremonies of that might have been held within the circle of stones on this hillside with sweeping views. As our last Zodiac departed the archeo-astronomical site, the full moon rose to the south as if on cue, the stones standing in time and the mystery and legacy of an ancient megalithic culture carried on.
