Between November 2025 and February 2026, I photographed all the gravestones in New Sandwick Cemetery. There are some 2,100 stones, showing over 4,000 names.
Using the findagrave site, I have transcribed the data from inscriptions (if legible) onto an Excel database. Currently, I am adding the family connections - where possible. There are 150 gravestones with no or illegible inscriptions.
The final item will be a full transcription of the inscription on all the gravestones - which will be a huge task. I intend to hand this over to Stornoway Historical Society once complete.
Next item on the agenda then will be the Old Cemetery; this was transcribed in the 1990s, an invaluable body of work as inscriptions have now faded, sometimes into oblivion, under the influence of acid rain, sandblow and encroaching lichen.
The Old Cemetery has 500 stones, showing 1,500 names. The New Cemetery is quite orderly, with stones standing in rows. The Old Cemetery is old, and stones are higgledy-piggledy across the precinct. I may have to use temporary little marker to show which ones I have covered.
Beyond that, I'll move on to the other 20-odd burial grounds in Lewis and Harris. And an extension to Uist and Barra is in my mind.
The picture is my favourite, taken in the New Cemetery on 20 December 2025, just 12 minutes before sunset.
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