VIP daytrippers: the Lewis chessmen come home, for a few hours at least

Next September, six Lewis chessmen will make a brief appearance at the one-room Uig Museum, where they are expected to arrive under police escort and be greeted by packed local crowds.

The visit will be a brief diversion from a five-month touring exhibition in the main Stornoway museum that opened yesterday, the National Museums of Scotland said.

The place they were dug up can be seen from the museum's door - although new research could throw that into question.

"This is the greatest thing that we have had, because they are world-known," said Finlay Mciver, one of the Uig Museum volunteers, who is in his 80s. "It's important that they come back to where they were found.

"If we could have the security to make sure they were safe, we would like to have them for more than one day, but we can't afford it."

The Uig Museum occupies a single large room at the Timsgarry community centre.

Two large wooden chessmen, recently commissioned by Uig Community Council, stand outside the museum and near the spot where the figures were said to have been discovered on the machair at Ardroil Beach.

The Lewis Chessmen Unmasked, a touring exhibition drawing on the Lewis chessmen held by the National Museums of Scotland (NMS) and the British Museum, opened at Stornoway's Museum nan Eilean yesterday and runs until 12 September.

It was on show in Edinburgh last year and was drawn together by curators doing their best to ignore the political jibes being traded between Westminster and Nationalist politicians demanding that the chessmen - with the lion's share held by the London museum - should be returned to Scotland, if not Lewis itself.

The chessmen, which were discovered on the western shore of the island in 1831 as part of a hoard of walrus ivory, are usually believed to have been made in Trondheim, Norway, in the 12th or 13th century. The British Museum acquired 82 pieces while 11 remained in Scotland.

The chessmen were found by local man Malcolm Macleod, apparently in a stone kist in a dune, right in front of what is now the community centre. But contemporary accounts are confused, along with colourful stories about shipwrecked sailors and even murder.

On 13 September a knight, pawn, warder (later replaced by the rook), king, queen and bishop will travel to Uig, escorted by police and curators.

David Caldwell, head of NMS's Scottish and European collections, said: "Up here they are not the Lewis chessmen, they are the Uig chessmen. The people in the parish are very proud that they were found locally."

Early reports of the chessmen's finding, including in The Scotsman, put the spot not at Uig Beach but at Mealasta, about six miles south, in an underground chamber.

Later this year, researchers will take soil samples at Mealasta to establish whether bones indicate that people of "high status" lived there in the 12th or 13th centuries and who might have had something as prestigious as the chessmen.