Barnhill is a farmhouse in the north of the island of Jura in the Scottish

Inner Hebrides The Inner Hebrides ( ; ) is an archipelago off the west coast of mainland Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which experience a mild oceanic climate. The Inner Hebrides compri ...

overlooking the

Sound of Jura The Sound of Jura () is a Sound in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is one of the several Sounds of Scotland. It is to the east of the island of Jura and the west of Knapdale, in the north of the Kintyre Peninsula, of the Scottish mainland. ...

. It stands on the site of a larger 15th-century settlement, Cnoc an t-Sabhail; the English name Barnhill has been in use since the early twentieth century. The house was rented by the essayist and novelist

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

, who lived there intermittently from 1946 until January 1949. He completed his final novel, ''

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also published as ''1984'') is a dystopian novel and cautionary tale by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final completed book. Thematically ...

'', at Barnhill. According to a

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

report, Orwell was spending months on the island "to escape the daily grind of journalism and to find a clean environment which doctors thought would help him recover from a dangerous bout of tuberculosis". Orwell left Jura in January 1949 to get treatment at a

sanatorium A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, is a historic name for a specialised hospital for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments, and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often in a health ...

at Cranham, Gloucestershire and never returned.

After 1950

Since Orwell's death in 1950, Barnhill has been a site of interest for many who are familiar with his life and writing. The cottage is still owned by the family that rented it to Orwell and the four-bedroom house is rented as a holiday cottage, remaining in virtually the same condition it was when the author was working on ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'': a generator supplies electricity, the small refrigerator is gas-powered and heat is provided by a coal-fired Rayburn. "If you stay here, you’re really treading in Orwell’s footsteps. He would recognise the place instantly if he were to step through the door today," Orwell Society member Damaris Fletcher told ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''.

References

{{Authority control Farmhouses in Scotland Jura, Scotland George Orwell Houses in Argyll and Bute