RAF Aird Uig

Royal Air Force Aird Uig was a Royal Air Force radar station located on the western edge of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. The main masts and operations room were located north of the village of Aird Uig on Gallan Head, with a separate domestic site nearer to the village, five-eighths mile (one kilometre) further south. The station was originally constructed as part of the ROTOR programme and it was operated by the communications ground trades of the RAF between 1954 and 1974. After ROTOR, the site continued in RAF use as a communications station and radar site until 2000, when the responsibilities of the base were moved to RAF Buchan, near Peterhead in Aberdeenshire. The site was then taken over by NATO as a communications hub before being vacated completely by the military in 2010. In its later years, No. 112 Signals Unit at RAF Stornoway provided the staffing for the day-to-day operation of the site. The Guard House, which is at the entrance to the site, is asbestos contaminated, as are other various buildings on the site. There are plans to recondition the site and open it to the public as a tourist attraction, observatory and whale listening post.