The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Borders literary trail
OPENING one of the many secret doors at Moat Brae to have a peek at what’s on the other side brings out a childish sense of delight, whatever age you are. One door takes us on board a pirate ship, to the sounds of creaking decks and giant sails flapping in the wind. Another behind the scenes while children giggle as they rehearse a stage play.
There’s only one stipulation for all visitors to the former home of JM Barrie in Dumfries – let your imagination run wild. The red sandstone house where the novelist and playwright, who created Peter Pan, lived as a boy was just three days away from demolition and the bulldozers moving in when the Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust stepped in. That was back in 2009 and in the intervening 10 years £8 million has been raised to bring back to life the elegant doublefronted Georgian townhouse designed by architect Walter Newell and create a place to play, read and plot adventures.
Barrie would be thrilled. When he was a young boy playing in the garden, the River Nith became a sea filled with pirate ships and crocodiles and the surrounding fields were Barrie’s very own Neverland. Now those dreams have been realised, thanks to the creative geniuses behind the project. There’s a trail of crocodiles hidden around the garden and a pirate ship play area with a lost boys’ lookout. Step beneath a fairy bower made of willow, then discover Tiger Lily’s encampment and the nearby mermaid lagoon.
Inside the transformation from the neglected, run down building latterly used as a nursing home to a hive of activity of play and fun is quite stunning. Crumbling walls have been rebuilt and intricate cornicing carefully recast. It reopened this month as Scotland’s National Centre for Children’s Literature and Storytelling and is the next chapter in the life of the house. Wander the rooms to find memorabilia, from the 1904 bell used by Tinkerbell in the original stage production of Peter Pan to magazines made by Barrie and his childhood friends to tell their stories.
Listen out for a translation of the fairy language by Trust supporter Joanna Lumley and step inside the attic bedroom that is Nana’s nursery. Some of us might be too big to crawl through Nana’s kennel to the next room – it’s another secret door – but little hands and feet can easily slip past and marvel at what’s in store in the next room where the stage is set for entertainment. Elsewhere there’s even a recreation of Mr Anderson’s bookshop, the favourite haunt of a young Barrie in the town.
The opening of Moat Brae puts Dumfries firmly on the map and starts a fascinating journey to some of the region’s other landmarks of literary heritage. Follow the town’s Burns trail to visit the house where Robert Burns spent the last years of his life and see his original manuscripts. There’s an interesting display in the Robert Burns Centre on his life as a farmer and excise man in the late 18th century.
Further west is Wigtown, Scotland’s book town, famous for its annual book festival held every autumn. Every other shop seems to be a bibliophile’s dream, many with a cosy corner to sit with a coffee while you browse. It’s an easy amble around the pretty town square that is so quiet and peaceful, even on a weekend, it feels there must be noisier libraries elsewhere in the country.
In the 20 years since the first Wigtown Book Festival, the event has grown massively. Aside from Edinburgh Book Festival, it’s the largest literary event in Scotland. To put that into perspective, it’s not uncommon for the number of people attending book events on any given festival day to outnumber the entire population of Wigtown (estimated at less than 1000). That’s something to write home about.
Now book festival director Adrian Turpin is planning events year-round to encourage bookworms to linger longer. From walking tours to storytelling themed hotel stays, the area’s rich literary links are being reimagined.
“We’re reflecting Scotland’s literary wealth and living heritage,” considers Turpin, adding with a smile: “When Richard Hannay says in John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, ‘I fixed on Galloway as the place to go,’ that’s because it was so quiet he thought he’d never be found. We’re trying to rectify that, we want people to visit.”
Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders are a snapshot of Scotland in miniature and it’s a stunning drive east, past Moffat to Melrose. We go through the Tweedsmuir Hills, alongside the Grey Mare’s Tail waterfall and then the gurgling banks of the River Tweed.
Our destination is Abbotsford. We couldn’t come all this way and not visit the former home of arguably the king of Scottish literary tourism, and also the godfather of Scottish tourism. Scott made a massive impact on the literary world and his Waverley novels are considered to be the birth of historical fiction, bringing Victorian tourists flocking to Scotland to visit the scenes they read about.
The historical novels of Sir Walter Scott may have fallen out of favour for some years, but a visit to Abbotsford proves the writer’s own story is as good a ripping yarn as those he told.
Scott’s conundrum castle – a mix of Scottish Baronial architecture with Tudor flourishes – was built in the early years of the 19th century
on the proceeds of his bestselling work. As the books sold and the money rolled in, he bought a farm and land on the banks of the Tweed. Calculating future earnings, he embarked on a major project that saw the original farmhouse replaced with the grand house that stands today. Of course there was no happy ending to this story as the collapse of his Edinburgh publisher left Scott more or less bankrupt. The only answer was to write himself out of debt.
THE study we visit which has Scott’s desk and chair is what the writer at one time referred to as his inner sanctum. And there are stories of the delighted squeals of children playing in the gardens outside as family pets jumped in and out of the open windows on warm, summer days. It’s an idyllic scene, but one that changed dramatically after financial disaster hit. This room went on to become Scott’s selfimposed prison as he wrote for his survival.
The baronial style entrance hall, filled with coats of armour, coats of arms and assorted curiosities, is the perfect introduction to the antiquarian and collector. There are two Highland broadswords used at the Battle of Culloden, relics of Waterloo he collected himself on a battlefield visit and curios such as the cast of the skull of Robert the Bruce.
“This is not a museum,” explains our guide, Dr Malcolm Morrison. “It’s a literary museum. Some of the objects are genuine and maybe others aren’t. It doesn’t matter because Scott used them to link us to history.”
Visitors can’t fail to be impressed by the library, packed with 7000 books and heartstopping views looking out across the Tweed. “This is a protected author’s working library and that makes it unique,” stresses Morrison, “there are none as intact as this.”
Scott’s eccentric collection of curiosities continues here … the fragment of an oatcake picked up from the battlefield at Culloden, a pocket book stitched by Flora Macdonald and a crucifix said to have belonged to Mary Queen of Scots. The provenance of some may be harder to prove than others but they certainly would have inspired many fireside tales when Scott was hosting dinners for friends and family. The drawing room next door with its hand-painted Chinese wallpaper is a contrast to the very male-influenced décor elsewhere.
The writer has never been forgotten and the Walter Scott prize, presented every year at the Borders Book Festival, continues to link his name with authors of historical fiction. More is to come in 2021 to mark the 250th anniversary of his birth. The stories and adventures told here couldn’t be more different from those we heard at Moat Brae, but they are equally enthralling. After all, the magic of storytelling can be enjoyed by all ages.