Stornoway is a town on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.
The town's population is around 9,000, making it the largest town in the Western Isles (with a third of the population) and the third largest town in the Scottish Highlands after Inverness and Fort William. The civil parish of Stornoway, including various nearby villages, has a population of approximately 12,000. Stornoway is an important port and the major town and administrative centre of the Outer Hebrides. It is home to Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (the Western Isles Council) and a variety of educational, sporting and media establishments. Observance of the Christian Sabbath (Sunday), had long been a unique aspect of the islands culture. Recent changes mean that Sunday is now less different to the other Western Isles or the mainland of Scotland.
The town's true beginnings are now lost in the mists of time. The island sea roads were well travelled by the islanders seafaring ancestors as evidenced by their megalithic building traditions, commensurate with the oldest of those circles found in Britain and Europe. This taken together with archaeological pottery finds on the island which date back 5000 years similar to the products of other widely travelled pottery traders, is evidence of interchange of ideas that involve sea travel and trade on a wide scale.
The town, and what eventually became its present day version, grew up around a sheltered natural harbour well placed at a central point on the island, for the convenience of people from all over the island, to arrive at the port of Stornoway, either by family boat or horse drawn coach for ongoing travel and trade with the mainland of Scotland and to all points south. At some point in the mid 1500s, the already ancient MacLeod castle in Stornoway 'fell victim to the cannons of the Duke of Argyle'. By the early 1600s rumbling trade wars came to a head and all further governmental attempts to curtail traditional shipping rights were firmly resisted by the islanders as was an attempt by the King of Scotland James VI to place in the island the Scottish trading company known as the Fife Adventurers, around 1597.
In the mid 17th century, the ownership of Stornoway and by extension, Lewis - passed from the MacKenzies of Seaforth, to Sir James Matheson (and his descendants) who built the present Stornoway castle on a hill overlooking the bay of Stornoway. Matheson sold the island to William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme. Lord Leverhulme held the island for a short time. His economic plans for the island (and with diverse business setbacks looming) over-stretched his finances and faced with failure in Lewis, he gifted Stornoway parish to the people of the town. The Stornoway Trust was formed and continues to administer the parish for the people.
Today the harbour hosts a fishing fleet (and associated shoreside services) somewhat reduced from its heyday, a small marina and moorings for pleasure craft, a small shipyard and slipway, three larger piers for commercial traffic and Stornoway Lifeboat Station, run by the RNLI and home to a Severn class lifeboat, Tom Sanderson. Her Majesty's Coastguard operates a Maritime Rescue Sub Centre from a building near the harbour.
A lighthouse, seaweed processing plant and a renewable energy manufacturing yard are situated on Arnish Point at the mouth of the harbour and visually dominate the approaches. Arnish Point is also earmarked by AMEC as the landfall for its proposed private sub-sea cable which would export the electricity generated from the Lewis Windpower wind farm with a planning application for 181 turbines submitted to the Scottish Executive. In 2008 the Scottish Government rejected the plans - the company responsible is currently planning their next move.
The Arnish area was also surveyed by SSE for a second sub-sea cable but lost out in favour of Gravir to the south as the preferred site.
The manufacturing yard was originally established in the 1970s as a fabrication plant for the oil industry but suffered regular boom and bust cycles. The downturn in business from the North Sea oil industry in recent years led to a move away from serving this market. The yard is now earmarked as a key business in the development of the whole Arnish Point industrial estate and has received large amounts of funding in recent years.
In 2007 the Arnish yard was taken over by its third tenant in as many years. Cambrian Engineering fell into liquidation as did Aberdeen-owned Camcal Ltd with relatively large scale redundancies. Both firms were affected by the absence of a regular stream of orders and left a chain of large debts impacting upon local suppliers. Altissimo Ltd is a new firm backed by a group of Swiss and Dutch investors, and has purchased the Camcal name from the previous operator. In December 2007, the yard won a contract to construct 49 towers for wind turbines in Turkey. This will ensure employment for around 70 employees for over six months.
On 1 January 1919, the Iolaire sank at the entrance of the harbour, one of the worst maritime disasters in Scottish or UK waters, with a death toll of 200 men.
