B896 (Garynahine - Barvas)

This article is about the former B896 on the west side of Lewis.
For the original B896 in the north of Lewis, see B896 (Barvas - Port of Ness).
For the current B896 on Great Cumbrae, see B896.

The A858 (former B896) towards Carloway

In 1922, the B896 is listed as running from Barvas to Lionel, along what is now the A857. At Barvas it met both the A857 and A859, which followed the coast south to Callanish.

However, the 1932 OS 10-mile map shows the B896 starting at the B8011 junction (which by then had become the terminus of a lightly shortened A858) south of Callanish and heading north then east around to Barvas to end at the junction with the A857, which had been extended north to Lionel. This was the original route of the A859. Whether the B896 ever ran from Callanish to Lionel at the same time is not yet known. This later southern section was short-lived and was quickly incorporated into an extended A858, with the renumbering presumably taking place in 1935, as it first appears on the 1936 OS map.

Either way, the B896 appears to have had two 'lives' on Lewis before being re-born on Cumbrae, and both were pretty short lived!