Big Brother is Stalking You

When George Orwell wrote his book 1948 in Barnhill, in the far north of Jura, he couldn’t have guessed that the house he wrote his famous novel in would become a pilgrimage destination for his fan’s, let alone being the subject of stalking, something he wrote about in his book. And that’s exactly what happens with this very remote holiday destination which can be rented from May to October. Barnhill isn’t the easiest place to get access to. It’s one of the remotest places on a remote part of a remote island. This means that, just to have a look at the house, you have to undertake quite a journey. It’s no more than logical that people who rent this house do this to enjoy peace and quite without having curious people staring through the windows, which seems to be the case according to an article on the For Argyll website. A quote:

With no central heating and no generator, Barnhill is too cold and dark to be let in the winter but it is a holiday home on the market from May to October. People renting it are regularly finding Orwell-obsessives peering trough the windows and wandering around this very remote property where they had expected peace and privacy to be guaranteed. Kate Johnson’s family own and rent Barnhill, marketing it as a wilderness experience in an island with around 200 people and 6,500 red deer. Mrs Johnson says: ‘People appear here from all over the world. They usually start walking up here in April although you even get them walking up in the winter time. … It’s a private house and if it is let out and people are there for a holiday they don’t want people poking their noses through the windows’.