Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941)

Fleming bought a former donkey racetrack just outside the sleepy Northern coastal town of Oracabessa and set about building a house which he named Goldeneye. There are several theories as to the name’s origin: one was that he took the name from the novel Reflections in a Golden Eye, another that it came from Operation Goldeneye, the Allied plan he worked on in 1940 to defend Gibraltar, another theory was the Spanish translation of Oracabessa to ‘head of gold’ and perhaps most convincing of all was the discovery of a strange Spanish tomb in the garden which had a golden eye in a golden head.