Grants for Moat Brae and Campbeltown Picture House

THE gardens that inspired the story of Peter Pan, and one of Scotland’s oldest cinemas have both successfully bid for Lottery cash to aid their restoration.

Campbeltown Picture House is one of our oldest cinemas

Campbeltown Picture House on the Kintyre peninsula celebrated its 100th anniversary last May and will receive £1.1 million to keep it open for film lovers for years to come.

The A-listed art nouveau building will be restored as part of a three-year project which will see a second auditorium and a new cafe bar added.

Meanwhile, Moat Brae House in Dumfries has been awarded £1.7m by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

Peter Pan author JM Barrie has suggested that the tale of the boy who never grew up, first published in 1904, was conceived on the estate where he enjoyed playing pirates as a child.

Barrie is quoted as saying that his “escapades in a certain Dumfries garden, which is enchanted land to me, were certainly the genesis of that nefarious work”.

A project is under way to transform the house and its gardens into Scotland’s first centre for children’s literature and storytelling.

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Actress Joanna Lumley, patron of the Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust, said: “This grant will make a sensational difference to Moat Brae and the plans for the future of the Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust.

“It means that we can now move swiftly towards our goals of restoring the house and garden in readiness for its role in the literary life of children in Scotland.

“Our aims are to nurture the memories of past writers and to encourage the emergence of new, young talent, to respect our extraordinary literary inheritance and to enable children’s imaginations to fly, like Peter Pan.”

The HLF announced grants yesterday totalling more than £4.8 million in Scotland.

The A-listed Picture House in Campbeltown is the oldest purpose-built cinema in Scotland still showing films.

The cinema is currently closed to the public pending restoration and redevelopment.

Staff hope the cinema will reopen in mid-2016.

Colin McLean, head of HLF in Scotland, said: “Heritage is an ordinary word for something that is quite extraordinary. The strands that weave the rich tapestry of Scotland’s history are too numerous to define. Literature, buildings, industry, popular culture and wildlife are all an essential part of where we come from.

“HLF is delighted to bring Christmas cheer to these presents from our past so that they can be cared for, enjoyed, learned from and celebrated well into the future.”

Earlier this month, HLF awarded Historic Scotland a £3.8m grant to create Scotland’s first building conservation centre at The Engine Shed in Stirling.

The successful HLF bid completed a funding jigsaw for the £8.9m project to go ahead, adding to funding which had already been secured from the European Regional Development Fund and the Scottish Government’s Young Scots Fund.

The National Museum of Flight at East Fortune in East Lothian was also a recent recipiant of Lottery funding, gaining a grant of £1.3m to help pay for the transformation of two hangars.

The Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine and the University of Glasgow’s textile industry collection were also granted funding earlier this year to allow them to seek out and purchase what they need to enhance their collections.

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