Lews Castle – the Sunken Garden and the Shoeburn
A few hours.
The route
The grounds of Lews Castle, on the edge of Stornoway, are a wooded Victorian parkland unlike anywhere else in the Outer Hebrides.
Sir James Matheson laid them out in the 1850s, and the community has owned them since 1923. At their centre is the Sunken Garden, a sheltered glen terraced with planting, and beside it the Shoeburn, a steep ravine of waterfalls with a path down under the Matheson Bridge. It's a gentle late morning for garden lovers, with lunch at the Woodlands Café at the bottom.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
None of ours is close by: the nearest is Harris Hideaway, 27 miles away. Sleeps 2.
The day
Stornoway
Up through a ravine of waterfalls to the castle lawns and a sheltered garden glen, then back down through the trees to lunch.
About two and a half hoursAbout 0.5 miles on foot
The Sunken Garden at Lews Castle
Park at the Woodlands Café in the Castle Grounds, where there's plenty of room. From there, walk up the Shoeburn, a steep-sided ravine with waterfalls, on a winding path that passes under the tall span of the Matheson Bridge to the castle. In front of the castle is the Green, and beside it the Sunken Garden, a natural sheltered glen that has been terraced into a long vista of formal and woodland plants and shrubs. Beyond it the garden runs wilder into the Bowl, an open meadow of wildflowers in summer. A Viking silver hoard of around AD 1000 was found near the Sunken Garden in 1988, and it is now in Museum nan Eilean inside the castle. The grounds have no gate: go in daylight. The Shoeburn path is steep and winding: with a pushchair or a wheelchair, keep to the drive up to the castle. Allow about an hour, then walk back down through the trees to the café.
About 3 min on foot
The Woodlands Café
Lunch
Lunch is at the Woodlands Café, under the trees just below the castle with a view over the inner harbour. It has a seasonal menu of lunches and desserts, and makes a point of its milkshakes. It usually opens Monday to Saturday from 9.30am to 3.30pm and shuts on Sundays, but it posts its hours only on its Facebook page, so check there before going. Dogs are welcome on the outside decking, which looks over a children's play area, and the toilets are open in café hours. If it's full, An Lanntair's café bar over the Bayhead bridge in the town serves soup, toasties and sandwiches from noon, Monday to Saturday.
If it rains
All outdoors under the trees, and the Shoeburn path is steep and slippery when wet; in heavy rain, Museum nan Eilean inside Lews Castle is the dry choice (free; in the low season Tuesday to Saturday afternoons).
Where to stay
Photographs by Mark Adams and Rui Gomes via Google