A ten-year-old boy is orchestrating a campaign to save the seaside hotel where J.R.R. Tolkien wrote part of Lord of the Rings.

The Three Cups Hotel in Lyme Regis, Dorset, is derelict and developers want to convert it into flats.

But ever since Leon Howe discovered that part of his favourite book had been written there he has been determined to save the building. He has turned the campaign into a school project and on Saturday staged a protest march through the town, collecting 1,000 signatures on the way.

The Georgian hotel had many illustrious guests before it closed 20 years ago, including Jane Austen, Alfred Tennyson and Dwight D. Eisenhower, the US military commander who led the D-Day landings. It also featured in the film The French Lieutenant’s Woman, starring Jeremy Irons. He is also backing the campaign.

Leon and other local residents want West Dorset District Council compulsorily to purchase the hotel from Palmer’s Brewery and sell it to someone who will restore it to its former glory.

His mother Rikey, 41, who owns a teddy bear shop directly opposite the hotel, said: “Leon is a Tolkien fanatic and loves reading The Hobbit so he was very excited when he found out Tolkien spent a lot of time there.

“We attended a recent public meeting to discuss the hotel and sat at the front. When the open mike came round he put his hand up. He said that he felt so strongly that the hotel should be saved that he was going to do a school project on it and he was cheered.”

Leon drew and printed 200 leaflets promoting the protest march as part of his project at Mrs Ethelston’s Primary School in Lyme Regis.

He said: “Before this the Three Cups was just a building to me but now it is a really important building.

“I don’t think it should be abused like this. I am extremely angry and I don’t want to be my mum’s age and it still be looking like this.”

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