A Victorian castle above Stornoway harbour, with Museum nan Eilean, a café and wooded grounds owned by the community.
Lews Castle stands on the hill above Stornoway harbour, a grand Victorian castle of turrets and battlements with wooded grounds unlike anywhere else in the Outer Hebrides.
Sir James Matheson began it in the 1840s, a few years after buying the whole of Lewis, and Lord Leverhulme later gave it to the people of Stornoway, whose trust still cares for the grounds today.
Inside, the restored ground floor holds the Storehouse Café, and the modern wing beside it is Museum nan Eilean, the islands' own museum, where six of the Lewis Chessmen are on show. Afterwards, head out into the grounds. Paths wind through the trees and along the shore, where otters sometimes hunt among the rocks, to the River Creed, and up Gallows Hill for a view over the town. The museum opens Tuesday to Saturday, and the grounds are open at all hours.
The castle and its museum belong to the islands' council, and the grounds around them to the Stornoway Trust.
Opening hours
Their websiteIn 1988 a hoard of broken silver jewellery from around the year 1000 was found near the Sunken Garden in the castle grounds. It had been wrapped in linen and hidden inside a cattle horn, and it is now on show in the museum's main gallery.
Six of the famous chess pieces are on show in Museum nan Eilean, on loan from the British Museum.
The Mackenzies of Kintail built a lodge on this spot in the 1600s, long before the castle. Part of its wall still stands in the café area, and it was at the lodge that Lord Seaforth planned the Jacobite rising that ended at Glenshiel in 1719.
Sir James Matheson bought Lewis from the Mackenzie trustees in 1844 and built the castle. In 1918 Lord Leverhulme bought the island for £143,000, and when he left he gave the parish of Stornoway, the castle with it, to its people.
From 1939 to 1945 the Admiralty took over the castle as a naval hospital, and Cuddy Point on the shore below was a seaplane base.
Gallows Hill, the highest point of the grounds, has the remains of a Neolithic tomb on its summit, from as early as 4000 BC, and a heronry on its slopes.
New places, news and stories, as we find them.
What is on on LewisOn the hill across the inner harbour from the middle of Stornoway, reached by Willowglen Road off the A857, or on foot from the bridge at Bayhead.
Whalebone ArchAn arch made of the jawbones of a blue whale that came ashore in 1920, in a garden by the road at Bragar.16 miles 26 min by road
Callanish StonesA cross-shaped setting of standing stones on a ridge above Loch Roag, raised 5,000 years ago, before Stonehenge.17 miles 28 min by road
Dun Carloway BrochA 2,000-year-old broch tower on a rocky knoll near Carloway, still standing nine metres tall.22 miles 35 min by road
Dalmore BeachA sandy surf beach between cliffs on the west coast of Lewis, with sea stacks and an old cemetery above.23 miles 38 min by road
Gearrannan Blackhouse VillageA village of nine restored thatched blackhouses by the sea at Garenin, lived in until 1974.25 miles 42 min by road
Butt of Lewis LighthouseThe unpainted red-brick lighthouse on the cliffs at the northern tip of Lewis, finished in 1862.29 miles 50 min by road
Arrives at 5am every day.
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More on Lewis.
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