IT’S a ramshackle, falling-down cottage two miles from the nearest road in Cumbria. But when Sleddale Hall, featured in the cult movie Withnail & I, is auctioned next week it is tipped to fetch around £200,000 from bidders including Kate Moss.

And a Merseyside fan is now spearheading a campaign to buy the remote farmhouse and preserve it for other Withnail devotees.

Vig Smyth is gathering cash pledges online and hopes to establish a charitable trust to buy the property.

Vig, who runs boutique tea house Brew in St Peter’s Square, Liverpool, first saw the film 10 years ago and was gripped by the depiction of grime and drugs in 1960s Camden, starring Richard E Grant and Paul McGann as two down-and-out actors.

Sleddale Hall played the part of Crow Crag, a Lake District getaway the pair flee to for sanctuary from their city lives.

Since starring in the 1986 hit the farmhouse, near Shap, has been a much-loved retreat for movie lovers.

But Vig, who lives in Hale, fears the cottage will be demolished by whoever buys it and replaced with a modern building.

She told the Daily Post: “It’s a shame because whoever buys it will either demolish it or renovate it.

“If we get enough pledges to buy it we’ll work with people in the area to bring tourists in. If a celebrity bought it as a weekend retreat they would only be there once a year. It’s got character first and foremost. And it’s been claimed by the fans.”

Vig, 22, says it could be turned into a bed and breakfast for Withnail-themed weekends away.

And Merseyside star McGann has praised her efforts to keep the house accessible.

In an email to her, he wrote: “I do hope some collective action can save the place for those that love it.

“You might argue that it’s perfectly mad that anyone should be sentimental about the wreck of a building, particularly one they never lived in, and you’d be right.