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December 19, 2004
Neglecting our built heritage
The most important Scottish book of the 20th century? Perhaps George Orwell’s 1984? It was written at a house called Barnhill on the north end of the Isle of Jura.
We visited it in July. Was it signposted? No. Was there a museum there? No. Was it open to the public? No. Do tourists ever go there? No. It is at the end of a closed (and almost impassable) five-mile road only accessible to walkers. The house itself is privately owned and let for self-catering.
The good news is that the house seems to be in a reasonable state of repair - more than can be said for the birthplace of our national poet, Robert Burns. Jeremy Watson in today’s Scotsman writes about the deteriorating condition of the cottage, due to various complicated schemes that have gone wrong.
The SNP MSP Adam Ingram has urged the Scottish Executive to come up with a solution to looking after it, but maybe what we need to is a proper policy? It is less than a month since Rob Roy’s birthplace was sold by a public body to a private buyer for less than half a million pounds (see ‘Rob Roy’s birthplace sold’, November 25).
It seems extraordinary that we should have a well-organized and funded system for acquiring paintings and works of art for the nation to prevent them going abroad, and yet we don’t have relatively small amounts of money available to protect important built heritage sites.
www.orwelltoday.com/jurabarnhillvisit.shtml
news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1448152004
Posted by Simon Holledge at December 19, 2004 07:59 PM
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