The much-loved statue of Peter Pan in London’s Kensington
Gardens looks out over the northern end of The Long Water, not far from
Bayswater Road.
The location of the statue is significant, because the
writer James M Barrie (1860-1937) lived in nearby Bayswater Road and often took
walks in Kensington Gardens. It was on one of these walks that he met the
children of the Llewelyn Davies family, with their nurse. He became friends
with the boys and began telling them stories, which eventually turned into
Barrie’s famous play “Peter Pan” (1904). The story of these encounters was the main theme
of the 2004 film “Finding Neverland” which starred Johnny Depp as J M Barrie.
The statue dates from 1911 and was commissioned by Barrie
himself. The sculptor was Sir George Frampton (1860-1928). The model for Peter
was the actress Nina Boucicault (1867-1950) who had played the character of
Peter in the first production of the play (traditionally, Peter has always been
played by a woman).
Barrie stipulated that the statue should be placed in
position overnight so that it would appear to regular walkers in the Gardens
that it had sprung up “as if by magic”.
The figure of Peter stands, blowing his pipe, on top of a
rough-looking plinth that closer inspection shows to be populated by a number
of fairies, rabbits, squirrels and mice. It is therefore a “fun” piece of
sculpture that children love to visit in order to spot all the animals and
fairies and count how many there are. The ears of the creatures have been
rubbed smooth by the small hands of generations of youngsters, which is exactly
what Barrie would have wanted.
Visitors to London can therefore walk along the same paths
that J M Barrie and the “Lost Boys” walked more than a century ago and experience
a little bit of magic of their own. It is undoubtedly one’s of London’s
best-loved pieces of street art.
© John Welford
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