I'm heartbroken that Peter Pan's birthplace may be lost to us forever, reveals Joanna Lumley

It is the house where magic and enchantment first took flight in the mind of Peter Pan’s creator. 

A young JM Barrie spent many hours roaming the gardens of Moat Brae in Dumfries engrossed in marvellous games of make-believe with his schoolfriends.

Tales of pirates and fairies and ‘lost boys’ living free from the buttoned-up rules of grown-up society would play out in their own private ‘Neverland’, among grand cedar and tulip trees and across the lawn sloping down to the River Nith.

Those happy childhood memories would later inspire Barrie’s timeless classic about a boy who could fly but never grew up, which still enthralls children of all ages to this day.

But while the success of this great fictional hero remains unbroken 120 years after he first appeared on stage, the same cannot be said of Peter Pan’s birthplace.

Joanna Lumley campaigned for Moat Brae's restoration

Despite a lengthy battle by a group of determined campaigners spearheaded by Dame Joanna Lumley to transform this splendid Georgian mansion into a centre of storytelling excellence dedicated to Barrie’s memory, Moat Brae is facing the most difficult chapter in its history.

After surviving decades of neglect and vandalism and the threat of imminent demolition, millions were raised and poured into its rejuvenation. 

But now, only five years after Dame Joanna unveiled the renovated property as the home of the new National Centre for Children’s Literature, its trustees have announced ‘with a heavy heart’ that the project has run out of money and will close its doors on Friday.

Having seen a marked reduction in funding, including donations, along with a ‘significant drop in footfall’ and a ‘significant leap’ in running costs, the Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust (PPMBT) said it had no option but to pull the plug.

Having founded this modern-day Neverland, they fear losing it for good.

A devastated Dame Joanna said she was left ‘heartbroken’ by the decision. 

‘Many people are trying to think of ways to keep this beautiful and important historical building open and filled with children,’ said the star of Absolutely Fabulous and The New Avengers.

‘Reading and learning about literature are the bedrock of education and provide essential escapism for people of all ages, but most especially for children, and I shall keep my fingers crossed that some solution will be found.’

She added that there were important historical reasons to keep the building open. ‘The place where Peter Pan was born should be celebrated and the name of JM Barrie kept alive,’ she said. ‘I wait, like Mrs Darling at the nursery window, to see if love and life will return to Moat Brae.’

News of its looming closure will have hit the veteran star of stage and screen particularly hard given her efforts over the past 15 years to rescue it from oblivion.

As a girl, Dame Joanna confessed she was one of countless children captivated by the brilliance and innocence of Barrie’s fantasy world, a world ‘made of faith, hope and pixie dust’. 

And having owned a holiday cottage in the Galloway hills less than 20 miles from Dumfries, the 78-year-old actor was aware of the strong link between the author and Moat Brae.

Built in 1823 as a luxurious family home for the solicitor and postmaster general Robert Threshie, Moat Brae’s status as the finest house in the town led it to be known simply as Number One Dumfries.

Yet, by the late 2000s the property was at serious risk after falling into terrible neglect. The roof was letting in water, the walls were saturated, the ceilings and plaster collapsing, the windows smashed, and it had been extensively vandalised.

Moat Brae was rescued from near dereliction and was on the bring of being demolished

The house became a centre of storytelling excellence after £8million was raised to save it

It was a world of dust, for sure, but little hope or faith for its future remained.

It was left to a group of residents with a rare talent for raising awareness – and funds – to attempt its rescue. 

One of them was Allen Paterson, a neighbour of Dame Joanna and a former curator of Kew Gardens, who was appointed to oversee the garden at Moat Brae and told his friend about a plan to transform Barrie’s ‘Neverland’ into a place where children could fall in love with reading.

Dame Joanna readily offered her help. She said: ‘The idea this old and beautiful house can be saved and will became a children’s literature centre is brilliant. When I heard about it, it was just like Tinker Bell had gone “ping” on my head with her wand.’

Having saved the building from demolition by the skin of their teeth – beating the bulldozers by only three days following two court injunctions – the campaigners formed themselves into the PPMBT in 2009, with Dame Joanna as their patron.

In less than ten years, they raised £8million in lottery and grant funding and set about a restoration to how it would have looked in Barrie’s day.

Speaking before it opened its doors to the public in 2019, Dame Joanna spoke of the house’s magical aura. ‘The thought of that 14-year-old boy looking from the attic window over the Nith, with those great rolling meadows and distant hills, dreaming of a pirate ship and flying away and remaining young forever – it gives me goose bumps,’ she said.

Barrie himself wrote warmly of his own memories of time spent in Moat Brae, saying: ‘I think the five years or so that I spent here were probably the happiest of my life, for indeed I have loved this place.’

There, he felt cocooned from the trauma that beset his young life.

Born into a family of humble Scottish weavers in Kirriemuir, Angus, in 1860, James Matthew Barrie was the ninth of ten children.

During his first six years, young James lived in the shadow of his mother Margaret’s all-consuming love for his older brother, David.

When David died in a skating accident on the eve of his 14th birthday, his mother was devastated. 

For James, the distressing event may have contributed to him developing Psychogenic Dwarfism, a disorder that blocks growth hormones in young people and is said to be brought on by extreme emotional deprivation or stress. The author of Peter Pan only grew to be 4ft 10in tall.

But there was another consequence – while Margaret eventually found consolation in the thought that ‘David would remain young forever’, her younger son would draw inspiration from it.

Aged 13, Barrie moved to Dumfries to stay with his older brother Alexander, a schools inspector, and attended Dumfries Academy for the next five years. There, he became friends with Stewart and Hal Gordon, whose father owned Moat Brae, which nestled in a cul-de-sac beside the school. 

Queen Camilla backed the reopening of Moat Brae in 2019

Set within half an acre, the gardens became fertile territory for Barrie and the Gordon brothers as they roamed in search of fairies and planned pirate attacks on boats on the River Nith. 

The gardens were not especially large but, as Dame Joanna once pointed out, ‘you don’t need big to dream’.

Although it would be another three decades before his play Peter Pan or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up was first performed at the Duke of York’s

Theatre in London on December 27, 1904, those games had planted the seeds of Neverland and Peter Pan in the author’s mind.

When he came to receive the Freedom of Dumfries in 1924, he referenced those years in his acceptance speech, saying: ‘For our escapades in a certain Dumfries garden, which is enchanted land to me, were certainly the genesis of that nefarious work.’

By then, he had been feted with numerous accolades, including a baronetcy and an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Edinburgh University, but his private life contained much sadness. 

His childless marriage to actress Mary Ansell ended in divorce. He found comfort in his close friendship with the Llewelyn Davies family and their five boys, whom he later adopted after the deaths of their parents.

Barrie died of pneumonia in 1937 and is buried next to his parents and two siblings in Kirriemuir. 

But while his sentiment of everlasting childhood has endured, his original play having spawned a book and a string of cartoons and films, the house and garden where it first took root has fared less well.

After remaining in the ownership of the Gordon family until 1906, Moat Brae passed through several hands and was run for many years as a private hospital and nursing home. 

When that closed in 1997, it marked the start of troubled times that took it to the brink of demolition.

It was sold at auction to a private buyer in late 2000 but plans to convert it to a grand hotel were never realised and, instead, it fell prey to vandals and the Scottish weather. When Loreburn Housing Association bought it in 2008, its plans to create a residential development and visitor centre proved divisive.

In August 2009, the PPMBT served a legal order to stop works which would have seen the façade retained but much of the rest of the building demolished. The order was granted three days before the bulldozers moved in. 

The housing association ultimately agreed to sell the building to the trust for £1.

The successful campaign to save the historic building and Neverland garden sparked a £8million fundraising campaign to repair and restore the property before financing modern extensions and the creation of an adventure garden.

Support came from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Creative Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland, as well as the Scottish Government and Dumfries and Galloway Council.

What the trust wanted was a house to spark the imagination. Throughout the three-storey house, from the mosaic entrance hall to the airy central cupola, interactive exhibits sat comfortably with children’s toys of the time, such as a spinning zoetrope, as well as the original Tinker Bell, a small bell that Barrie bought to be rung whenever his mischievous fairy character appeared in the original stage version of the story.

The attic became a recreation of the Darling children’s nursery, where visitors were encouraged to try to catch Peter Pan’s shadow, or crawl through Nana’s kennel into a play theatre furnished with flamboyant dressing-up props.

Most importantly, the architects created endless comfy corners to sit and read one of the thousands of donated books on offer. 

‘We didn’t want an archive of books that nobody could touch,’ explained Simon Davidson, the centre’s first director. ‘Our vision is very simple: a world where reading and storytelling are an integral part of growing up.’ 

Explaining the trust’s vision to make reading accessible to children of all ages and abilities, Mr Davidson said: ‘We want to find ways to engage children who can’t or who struggle to read, and there are multiple means of conveying a story.’

In the first nine months after it opened in 2019, it attracted 26,000 visitors and looked on course to generate a £1.3million boost to the local economy. 

Moat Brae received the royal seal of approval from noted booklover Queen Camilla (then Duchess of Rothesay) and was named among Time magazine’s Top 50 Coolest Places for Kids. It seemed that Peter Pan had worked his magic. Then Covid-19 struck.

JM Barrie was inspired to write his famous play by visits to Moat Brae as a child

Pandemic restrictions meant a 70 per cent drop in visitors in 2021 as it was forced to close or curtail events. 

Further lockdowns meant it closed for several months at the start of 2022, leading to the loss-making commercial arm that included the cafe shutting permanently.

A £280,000 award from the UK Government’s Community Renewal Fund sought to restore its fortunes, funding a major world class exhibition – the cutting-edge interactive Enchanted Journeys: Adventures in Storytelling created by design company MinaLima.

But even with a tie-in with the renowned Wigtown Book Festival and a raft of innovative events attracting big name children’s authors, poets, cartoonists and illustrators, Moat Brae fought in vain against the ravages of a cost of living crisis and a tail-off in visitor numbers.

Making last week’s announcement, Graham Edwards, the trust’s interim chairman, said: ‘The trust’s purpose was to spark young imaginations and encourage creativity. We hope this is the legacy we leave behind.’

Meanwhile, Dumfries and Galloway Council has pledged to do everything it can ‘to identify a viable long-term use’ for Moat Brae. 

Dame Barbara Kelly – former trust chairman – added that a general meeting would be held soon to explore ‘positive solutions’, adding: ‘It is of such economic significance to the town but it is also of historical significance.’

As if to make the point, the Moat Brae website features another quote from Peter Pan on its home page: ‘Never say goodbye because goodbye means you are going away and going away means forgetting.’ And JM Barrie would never want to forget where he found Neverland.