Peter Pan statue - a piece of Neverland

The bronze of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens is one of the most popular statues in London. He stands in a leafy glade about half way along the west bank of the Long Water. This site has a special importance for Peter Pan and was chosen for the statue by J M Barrie, the author who created him.

Barrie published his first story about Peter Pan in 1902 in The Little White Bird. It was inspired by his relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family that began in Kensington Gardens. In the story, Peter Pan flies out of his nursery and lands beside the Long Water - on the spot where the statue stands. Two years later, Barrie wrote another Peter Pan adventure, which included the Tinkerbell and Captain Hook characters. This became a hugely successful play and later a novel.

Barrie began thinking about a Peter Pan statue in 1906. He took a series of photographs of the six-year-old Michael Llewelyn Davies wearing a special Peter Pan costume. This was Barrie 's ideal vision of Peter Pan that he planned to give to a prospective sculptor. Six years later, in 1912, Barrie paid Sir George Frampton to create the statue and on May 1 st that year it appeared, as if by magic.

Peter Pan is standing on a tree trunk watched by animals of the English countryside and delicate winged fairies. There was no pre-publicity or formal unveiling. The statue was erected secretly during the night and Barrie simply placed this announcement in The Times:

"There is a surprise in store for the children who go to Kensington Gardens to feed the ducks in the Serpentine this morning. Down by the little bay on the south-western side of the tail of the Serpentine they will find a May-day gift by Mr J.M. Barrie, a figure of Peter Pan blowing his pipe on the stump of a tree, with fairies and mice and squirrels all around. It is the work of Sir George Frampton, and the bronze figure of the boy who would never grow up is delightfully conceived."

Despite the words in the announcement, Barrie was not completely satisfied with Frampton's work. The sculptor had not modelled Peter Pan on Michael Llewellyn Davies as Barrie had intended. Instead, he used another boy, possibly James W. Shaw or William A. Harwood. Barrie said of the statue: �It doesn't show the Devil in Peter.� Other people were not happy with it either. Questions were asked in the House of Commons about whether an author should be permitted to promote his own work by raising a statue of one of his characters in a public park.

But visitors to the gardens loved the statue. Barrie and Frampton had hoped it would give "quiet pleasure to nannies and their young charges as they walked passed and played in the Park". It quickly achieved iconic status and soon all images of Peter Pan looked like the Kensington Gardens version. Copies were made and there are now Peter Pan statues in Liverpool, Canada, Brussels, Australia and New Jersey, USA.