Calanais Standing Stones: How one couple became obsessed with 5,000-year-old monument on Isle of Lewis

Mr Ponting first moved to Outer Hebrides in the 1970s with his first wife Margaret, after the couple spent five happy summers touring around the islands in a caravan.

Calanais had been on their touring map, but “we had no thought that they would come to play a major part of our lives”, Mr Ponting, now 86, said.

After relocating from Suffolk, the couple ended up living in a house just a mile from the ancient astronomical observatory first built around 5,000 years before their arrival. Soon, their existence became intertwined.

Mr Ponting, who took a post the biology department at the Nicolson Institute after arriving in Lewis, said “becoming amateur archaeologists was never part of the plan”. But the couple’s fascination in Calanais - and the archaeology of the islands at large - became an obsession as the secrets of the place of ceremony, ritual and later burial unravelled.

“Sometimes illogically, Stonehenge gets all the attention,” Mr Ponting said. “Stone circles will have a central stone, or an avenue or a tomb. Calanais has them all.”

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Weekends were spent armed with metre tapes, pegs and clipboards as the couple headed high on steep ladders or down low to probe turf and peat to help bring the full majesty of the ancient site to maximum attention.

Within four years of their arrival, the couple published the first ever tourist guide on Calanais, which forged academic work with their new research and local knowledge. It became a best-seller with the help of local printer Chris Weir, with their work going around the world.

“When we first moved to Calanais, there was a real dearth of information,” Mr Ponting said. “There was just a metal sign at the site, which said you could buy a pamphlet on Calanais at Arnol Blackhouse for just 1p.”

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Over the decade the couple spent together on Lewis, they made many breakthroughs, including the discovery of lost stone 33A, which had toppled over and lay out of view for possibly 100 years.

It was found by the couple after an examination of plans by John Lynton Palmer, who visited Calanais in 1857 and who recorded five stones in the east row, instead of the four which were on show.

After examining measurements made by Palmer, an initial “poke around” with their basic geophysics device of a blunt-ended iron rod with wooden handle made by a blacksmith in Stornoway immediately confirmed there was “something rocky” beneath the turf.

“There it was, on the other side of the fence - it had been lost for around 100 years,” Mr Ponting said.

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The couple then mapped out the shape of the stone using string and squares of white paper. Their discovery led to a major excavation of the Calanais site in 1980 by the-then Ancient Monuments department in Edinburgh. The stone was fully excavated and moved to standing once again.

Mr Ponting said: “It was a wonderful justification for our studies and it was a great thrill to see it exposed by the excavation team.” He added: “I think our work stimulated other work, people told us about stones, we followed it up. We told the professionals and the professionals took over,

“The main excavation that took place in 1980 and ‘81, well the professionals had that in mind. But once we had discovered stone 33A, well the floodgates opened.”

Another find came when Margaret found the top of Stone 19, which had broken off.

Mr Ponting said: “I was packing up the tall step ladder and Margaret said to me ‘I’ve found the top of the stone, by the way’. She handed me the rock, I went back up the steep ladder, and it was the perfect fit.

“We obviously contacted the ancient monuments authority and a man came up and glued it in place.”

The couple also promoted the spectacle of the Major Southern Lunar Standstill every 18.6 years, with the event observed this summer. When viewed from the north of the avenue at Calanais, the moon skims the hills to the south, said to be shaped like a supine woman, then disappears before shining in the circle as it sets.

Their explanation the monument was aligned to catch this lunar event is now broadly accepted.

As their profile as island archaeologists soared, the Pontings were often called out when discoveries were made, with radio appearances and column inches in the Stornoway Gazette following.

Mr Ponting has also been widely credited with connecting academic archaeology with the communities who live in the midst of ancient sites.

He said all of the couple’s work was helped by knowledge of local people, who guided them towards many previously unrecorded megaliths, including the Achmore Stone Circle. Gaelic speakers also aided them greatly.

Mr Ponting said: “Our status as the local experts on ancient objects was emphasised when two workmen rang our doorbell to show us ‘a stone tractor seat’ that they had found.

“Subsequently, we received visits and phone calls about stone axeheads, a ball of fat in a peat bank, a Viking skull and so on; as well as social visits from professors and megalith enthusiasts from around the world.

“Our motto became ‘there is no such thing as an ordinary week’.”

Mr Ponting will return to the Isle of Lewis this weekend for the launch of his book, Archaeological Adventure in the Outer Hebrides, which is published by the Islands Book Trust. He said he was “excited” for the visit - the first he has made since 2006.

With him will be a very special item - a 5,000-year-old stone axehead that was gifted to him in 1983 by Donald Macleod of Cromore. The artefact was found during the demolition of a blackhouse wall, where such items were placed for luck.

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Mr Ponting is handing over the “rare and priceless artefact” to the care of Comunn Eachdraidh na Pairc Museum at Ravenspoint on Tuesday. As a result, understanding of the archaeology of the islands is, once more, all the richer.

- Archaeological Adventures in the Outer Hebrides by Gerald Ponting is published by Islands Book Trust on September 1.