The Hebridean island’s shops have remained firmly closed on the Sabbath for decades – but now the supermarket giant has bucked the trend

In the town of Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, a Tesco supermarket looms large. Overlooking the local Sea Angling Club and hefty circular storage tanks belonging to the town’s fuel depot, its blue and red logo is one of the first sights to greet visitors and residents alighting from the ferry.

Until recently, if you had walked past the superstore on a Sunday, it would have been shuttered, dark and silent, like many shops in the island’s biggest town. Lewis has a strong Christian history, dominated by the Free Church and Church of Scotland. Sabbatarianism – the belief that Sunday should be kept as a holy day in line with the fourth commandment of the Bible – is widely observed and, in some quarters, fiercely protected.