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£7.4m Peter Pan fantasy made a reality in Dumfries

£7.4m Peter Pan fantasy made a reality in Dumfries

February 19 2018

Dumfries & Galloway Council has is set to bring the story of Peter Pan to life after allocating £7.4m of funding to transform an historic Dumfries home credited by author JM Barrie with inspiring his timeless tale of adventure.

The cash is funding conversion work at Moat Brae house to create a centre for children’s literature and storytelling, to designs by LDN Architects.

Contractor Balfour Beatty is already on-site to renovate the Georgian townhouse and gardens for its new use with completion expected by autumn of this year. Upon completion the house will include an education suite, café, shop and interpretative display to inspire visitors with tales from Neverland.

A £600k shortfall must still be plugged before work can be fully completed however, with the hope that this sum can be obtained from the Scottish government’s Regeneration Capital Grant Fund.

Built in 1823 as a private residence the home subsequently fell into dereliction by the 1990’s prior to being taken on by the Moat Brae Trust.

In later years the property was used as a private nursing home

Pirate games played by Barrie in the Moat Brae gardens helped to inspire his Peter Pan story in later life

7 Comments

#1 Posted by Tinkerbell on 19 Feb 2018 at 10:31 AM

Quite taken a back about how ill-fitting and crass this looks, especially the (lift?) core attached to the original building.
That entrance looks like it has been lifted from an 1990's shopping centre. Hopefully the reality will be executed with more refinement than the images.

#2 Posted by Mary Hill on 19 Feb 2018 at 13:44 PM

This looks dreadful. I too am taken aback. The CGIs are shocking. Both building and landscape look totally uninspiring. This unique project deserves better.

#3 Posted by Sven on 20 Feb 2018 at 09:56 AM

There seems to be a weird bronze coloured box stuck on the side of a symmetrical Georgian villa with a glass conservatory entrance vestibule adding nothing which looks like the entrance to a provincial shopping centre. Who signed this off? Did they have their glasses on? This is one of the poorest designs that I have ever seen.