Built in the 1930s for a well-known Baildon family, Greenhill was also the childhood home of the late Richard Whiteley, who returned to his home while making a TV documentary on his life.

“We had known about Greencliffe Avenue for some considerable time, having always lived in Baildon, “ say the current owners, who have lived in their five-bedroom home since 1993.

“We often walked up the Bank and on to Greencliffe Avenue to visit friends and always liked the quiet cul-de-sac and admired the houses.

“When we saw that Greenhill had come on the market we felt compelled to look round – despite the fact that it was out of our price bracket at the time.

“It was an impressive family home with a huge amount of character and a large garden and it stood proudly on Greencliffe Avenue – which itself was a quiet, safe environment.

“The house was commissioned in the 1930s for Mr and Mrs Burnett and the plans show it originally had a maid’s room. When we moved in there were servants’ bells in all the rooms, which rang in the kitchen.

“The Burnetts subsequently sold the house to some doctors, who in turn sold the house to Mr and Mrs Whiteley who, like us, always admired the house.

They had two children Richard – who was later to enjoy TV fame with YTV’s Calendar as the host of Countdown – and Helen.

“We did keep in contact with Richard’s mother, after she sold the house to us and Richard did visit while making a TV documentary about his life.

“He was very interested to see how we had updated and modernised his child-hood home, which he included in his autobiography.

“The house was a solid, well-built house but in need of significant modernisation, as Mrs Whiteley had been widowed for some years and had been unable to do much to the house during that time.

“When we first bought the house, we completed the first stage of an exten-sive modernisation programme, which included a complete rewire, double glazing, central heating system, cavity wall insulation, new kitchen and a lick of paint to every room!

“Since then we have completed several major projects to improve the house, a two-storey extension over the garage to create what could be a granny flat - but has been used during our time here as a young peoples’ haunt – this includes a sitting room and bedroom/ensuite.

The kitchen has also been extended to create a dining area and a large rear porch and at this time the kitchen was again completely refurbished.

A small box room was incorported into the bathroom, creating a large luxury house bathroom.

All the bedrooms have been refurbished and an en-suite shower room installed in the second bedroom.

“We lived in a caravan for two weeks initially, while the house was being rewired. We lived inside the house during all the other work, which did prove hard some times with two small children – there was one occasion when we slept with rubble in the bed! and also lived for many weeks without an exterior wall in the kitchen.

“We have also recently had electric wooden gates installed.”

After the Burnetts moved in, they decided they needed to extend above the garage to create a larger maid’s room. As the war was on, there was an obvious shortage of building materials and resources, so the only plans to be approved had to include an air raid shelter – hence why the house has one.

“It could be confused as a cellar, but once down there it is fairly narrow and dark – it does, however, have an escape route into the back garden via what could be confused as a coal bunker – but it is in working order.

The kitchen is probably the favourite family room: “The Rayburn range cooker keeps the room warm all the time and as a family we do spend a great deal of time in there, it gets the morning sun and the skyline is quite spectacular in the early morning.

“It has also seen a great deal of enter-taining while we have lived at Greenhill. The attic was a very popular place with any children who visited the house and many hours were spent up there playing with the puppet theatre, which was built by the Burnett children and still remains today.”

The garden surrounds the entire house. “We have built a summer house to the rear which retains the sun until early evening, in front of this there is a circular patio with feature garden.

There is also a large drive right around the house with a newly-built car parking area.”

“The house is a warm family home and we have wonderful memories of not just our children, but of many children living and growing up on Greencliffe Avenue, which is a quiet safe cul-de-sac. It’s always been full of family and friends and has been filled with happiness.”