Campaign underway for George Orwell library on Jura

The main focus on Jura for Orwell fans is Barnhill, the house his family rented in the north of the island until 1949.

Claire Fletcher’s family owns the Ardlussa estate where it sits.

Her husband’s grandparents first rented Barnhill to Orwell – or Eric Blair, to use his real name – in the spring of 1947.

She described how Orwell pilgrims currently face a 25-mile drive followed by a long and difficult walk “just to stand and look at a house” and hopes the library might give those visitors a destination.

“We’ve had a bit of a trudge around and there are potential sites, but this is going to take an awful lot of work and collaboration and money and that’s going to be the tricky point,” she said.

“There is a potential site on Ardlussa where we could build something from scratch, I think, rather than trying to renovate an old building because the important thing is it would have to be really watertight if it was housing lots of books.

“It would just be a question of trying to pull some people together to try and make it happen, but we’re really good at that on the island.”