The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
JM Barrie’s Lost Boys of Neverland holiday hideaway on offer for a mere £1.35 million.
The Angus-born Peter Pan creator owned the summer retreat in Surrey from 1901 to 1908
The summer retreat of Peter Pan author Sir JM Barrie has gone on the market with a seven-figure price tag.
For almost a decade around the turn of the 1900s, the Angus-born playwright owned Black Lake Cottage on Tilford Road in Farnham, Surrey.
He invited the boys of his London friends, the Llewelyn Davies family, to stay there.
Their adventures in the woodlands near the cottage are thought to have inspired Barrie to write The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island in 1901.
Less than an hour by train from London, Black Lake Cottage was owned by Barrie from 1901 to 1908 and the author’s wife, Mary Ansell, documented the happy times spent there with the four youngsters who were brought to life in the pages of his famous fairy tale as the Lost Boys of Neverland.
Agent Strutt and Parker is marketing six-bedroom Lobswood House – part of the larger historic country house that included Barrie’s retreat – for £1.35 million and they say the property retains “great charm and character”.
Complete with outdoor swimming pool, the house was extended in 2015 to provide two extra bedrooms.
The company describes its most enchanting room as the vaulted principal bedroom with views over wellestablished gardens.
The Victorian house was previously used as a hotel and children’s home before being split into three in the 1970s.
Sitting in one and a half acres of land, it is on the edge of Bourne Wood where the boys – George, John, Peter and Michael – went to play as pirates.
It is thought the property name is derived from the character Lob in Barrie’s Dear Brutus.
A plaque placed by Waverley Borough Council on the wall of the property recognises the connection to its famous former owner.
Current owners Mark and Annabel Jermyn aim to downsize after bringing up their family there, and say the property has given them three decades of wonderful memories.
Last year, the Notting Hill home of the Davies family was marketed with a price tag of almost £1.4m.
The two-bedroom flat in Kensington Park Gardens was where the Kirriemuirborn writer first met the boys during outings with their nanny, Mary Hodgson, sparking the friendship which would lead to Barrie becoming known by them as Uncle Jim.