ACTRESS Penelope Keith and her former Burnley police officer husband Rod Timson appear to have tired of the dream home they built in Wycoller and are selling up.

The star of television's The Good Life and To the Manor Born, and her husband ran into a planning battle 12 years ago when they wanted to create a six-bedroomed guest house in the picture postcard village, which attracts thousands of tourists a year and is a designated country park.

At one time the couple said they intended to retire there.

Now Beckside House and the nearby Beckside Cottage are up for sale as one lot with Skipton auctioneers and valuers David Hill at a guide price of £365,000.

When the Timsons originally bought a derelict barn, the reputed setting for Ferndean Manor in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, they said they wanted to convert it into a guest house aimed at the American tourist market. Villagers objected and appealed to the then Pendle MP, tourism minister John Lee.

The star was eventually granted permission to transform the collapsed barn into a new building which was to look like a barn conversion. A few months later she changed her mind and said she wanted the new building to look like a house which had "always stood there".

Colne historian Bert Hindle supported the couple from the beginning and described protesters as "20th-century Luddites" and "Northern whingeing pommies".

He said: "Miss Keith's commitments keep her in the London area and they find it easier to get to the Isle of Wight. They said the traffic problems they encountered travelling north were getting worse and worse."

The Timsons are also selling another property in the village -- a Grade II building -- the ground floor of which was once a stable and upstairs the village institute. Part of the land included is where the chapel once stood.