Lottery Cash For Peter Pan Gardens

One of Scotland's oldest cinemas and the gardens that inspired Peter Pan have each successfully bid for Lottery cash to aid their restoration.

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 £1.7 million by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

Peter Pan author JM Barrie has suggested that the tale of the boy who never grew up 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.

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 totalling more than #4.8 million in Scotland.

A group set up to raise awareness of the conservation of Scotland's wildcat population has been given a grant of £973,100.

Eight organisations including Scottish Natural Heritage, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society will use the cash to provide training in wildcat surveys and wildcat-friendly land management practices.

Merkinch Welfare Hall in Inverness, built in 1914 and now in disuse, has been awarded £656,400 and a project celebrating the heritage of the Weymss bay coastal route in Inverclyde will receive £305,700.

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 numerable 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.''