Gravir ( gd, Grabhair), is a village on the shore of Loch Odhairn (a

sea loch ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spel ...

) in the

Park district A park district is a form of local special-purpose district for providing public parks and recreation in or near its geographic boundaries. Some park districts also own or maintain related cultural facilities such as monuments, zoos, sports venu ...

of the Isle of Lewis. Gravir is within the parish of Lochs. There is a Free Church, a school and a voluntary fire station in the village. There is also a pier. Most of the plots of land used to be used for

crofting Crofting is a form of land tenure and small-scale food production particular to the Scottish Highlands, the islands of Scotland, and formerly on the Isle of Man. Within the 19th century townships, individual crofts were established on the bett ...

, but this has declined in the last 50 years. The road leading to the village is the B8060, and continues on to Orinsay and Lemreway.

Economy

Gravir Pier is primarily used by

fish farming upright=1.3, Salmon farming in the sea (mariculture) at Loch Ainort, Isle of Skye">mariculture.html" ;"title="Salmon farming in the sea (mariculture">Salmon farming in the sea (mariculture) at Loch Ainort, Isle of Skye, Scotland Fish farming or ...

vessels but is also used by small fishing and leisure craft. The fish farm located in Loch Odhairn is operated by the Scottish Salmon Company. In March 2007,

Scottish and Southern Energy SSE plc (formerly Scottish and Southern Energy plc) is a multinational energy company headquartered in Perth, Scotland. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. SSE operates in the United Kingdom and ...

proposed to build a converter station above the village and to use Gravir as the Western Isles landfall for a sub-sea interconnector cable, to export electricity generated from two proposed large scale windfarms at Eishken and Pairc across the Minch to mainland markets. The cable would run north of the Shiant bank and land at Little Lochbroom. On the Lewis side, it would enter the mouth of Loch Odhairn at the fish farm and run up the length of the sealoch under the shore at its head, by the old schoolhouse, and then be buried across crofts to the hilltop to the converter station. One network of overhead lines or pylons would run to the planned Pairc windfarm and to Eishken. Another run of overhead lines on wooden poles would leave Gravir by following the village road heading for the sub-station by the River Creed. The proposed interconnector coming into Gravir has been placed on hold due to public objection to the proposals. Mr Openheim of Eisken estate, is happy for the interconnector to go directly into his estate via a more southerly sea loch should it ever be required in the future. SSE prefers Arnish Point as of 2016.

References

External links

Map at Google Maps

Satellite image at Google Maps

Western Isles Council (''Comhairle nan Eilean Siar'')

Western Isles Tourist Board

SSE Information Booklet
Villages in the Isle of Lewis {{WesternIsles-geo-stub