JESSICA SALTER
The house where JM Barrie is believed to have written the children's story Peter Pan was up for sale yesterday for £6.75m.
The six-bedroom Victorian property in central London is opposite Kensington Gardens, where James Matthew Barrie met five boys who inspired his creation.
The 3377 sq ft house on Gloucester Road includes two large living and entertaining rooms with original period features, study, dining room, kitchen and private garden. There are also six bedrooms and two balconies.
Will Pitt, manager of Foxtons in South Kensington, said: "The house really has caused quite a stir in the market and, although it is unique and an incredible opportunity regardless of background, the history really does add an extra dimension.
"Who wouldn't like to stand in the nursery of Peter Pan? The current owners fell in love with the period features."
Barrie published his first story about Peter Pan in 1902 in a book called The Little White Bird. In the story, Peter Pan flies out of his nursery and lands in the park.
Two years later, Barrie wrote another Peter Pan adventure with the Tinkerbell and Captain Hook characters which became a successful play and later novel.
Barrie was married to Mary, but they had no children of their own. In 1909 Mary had an affair with another writer and their marriage ended.
Barrie formed a friendship with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, the daughter of novelist George du Maurier, and her sons. Peter Pan evolved from stories that Barrie told the five young Llewelyn Davies boys - "the lost boys".
In a dedication to the boys at the beginning of the original Peter Pan play, Barrie wrote: "I suppose I always knew I made Peter by rubbing the five of you violently together, as savages with two sticks produce a flame. That is all Peter is - the spark I got from you."
When Sylvia and her husband Arthur died of cancer, Barrie became the guardian of their sons.
George, one of the sons, died in the First World War, Michael drowned himself with a friend in Oxford, and Peter, who became a publisher, committed suicide in 1960. Kensington Gardens has a bronze statue of Peter Pan commissioned by the author in 1906. Barrie died on June 19 1937 at the age of 77.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article