Argyll and the Isles Places

Jura

The rugged, mountainous landscape of the island of Jura—home to only about 200 people—looms immediately east of Port Askaig, across the Sound of Islay. Jura has only one single-track road (the A846), which begins at Feolin, the ferry pier. It climbs across moorland, providing scenic views of the island's most striking feature, the Paps of Jura, three beastlike rounded peaks. The ruined Claig Castle, on an island just offshore, was built by the Lords of the Isles to control the Sound.

Jura House lies between Feolin and Craighouse, the island's only village, some 8 mi away (its walled gardens are open to the public for part of the year). Jura's solitude attracted George Orwell to the remote farmhouse at Barnhill, where completed his famous novel, 1984.