Can there be the slightest doubt that 72/74 Market Street, Thornton, is one of the premier league literary birthplaces in the country?

For it was in this double-fronted stone cottage between 1815 and 1820 that the writers Charlotte, Emily, Anne Bronte were born, and their brother Patrick Branwell, an aspiring painter whose picture of the three sisters remains the most memorable of all the images he left behind.

And yet, unlike other famed family homes such as Mendips in Menlove Avenue and 20 Forthlin Road, the homes of Paul McCartney and John Lennon in the suburbs of Liverpool, the Brontes’ birthplace has been allowed to fall into rack and ruin.

Since it was purchased at auction by a London property investor for £180,000 in June, 2007 and subsequently converted into flats, the three to four-bedroom house has been allowed to deteriorate.

At the same time this was happening, the reputation of the Brontes was being used by tourist agency Welcome to Yorkshire to promote the region.

Now a group of concerned individuals have got together and formed the Bronte Birthplace Trust (2012) to try to retrieve the house and restore it to its former glory when, in the ownership of the writer Barbara Whitehead, it was a museum and a tourist attraction. In one year people from 17 different countries visited the house.

Chairman of the BBT is Steve Stanworth. He lives in nearby Allerton, but has had an attachment to Thornton for 25 years following the baptism of his daughter in St James’s Church. He is also actively involved in fundraising for the Bell Chapel, opposite the church.

He said: “We are looking to raise about £200,000, based on a valuation of the property of about £130,000. It’s in receivership, so it shouldn’t be full market value. There’s quite a bit of structural work that needs doing.

“If we can get the house up and running it could have a positive effect on the rest of Market Street. We could start a Bronte trail through Thornton from the house, going on to the Bell Chapel and the church.

“We need a five-year plan. And if we set up as a charity, we need £5,000. We did approach the Bronte Parsonage with a view to creating a sub-museum in the house, but they said their constitution doesn’t allow them to spend their reserves on buying property.”

Conservative Councillor for Thornton and Allerton Valerie Binney said was also at the inaugural meeting of the BTT. She said: “I would just love to see the house restored and brought back as a museum with guides. Nobody owns it at the moment, so it could be cheaper to buy.”

The former Liverpool homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney are owned by the National Trust. When I visited them in 2008, the McCartney terraced house was lived in by a man – also a left-handed guitarist – whose job it was to give visitors a guided tour.

This arrangement seemed to work well. He lived there rent-free and the National Trust had someone looking after the house where teenage John and Paul wrote songs that became The Beatles’ early chart-busting hits.

Thornton-based writer and university lecturer Michael Stewart came to Thornton 12 years ago. Within a week of moving into his Market Street home, he went across the road to visit the Bronte birthplace which, at that time, was owned by Barbara Whitehead.

He said: “Barbara gave a short tour and a selection of well chosen anecdotes. It was a great welcome to the village. At the time, Market Street was thriving, there was a butchers, a bakers, a cafe, a pet shop, children’s clothes shop, lots of other shops.

“Most of these are now boarded up. It may be a coincidence that the decline of Market street correlates to the closing of the museum, but the saving of the museum could really inject new life and opportunity into the village.

“This is a place of great cultural significance. The Brontes are known all over the world. With the onset of the birthday bicentenaries of the three sisters, the time is ripe to turn the fortunes of their birthplace around.”

The Bronte Birthplace Trust (2012) is due to meet next on October 31.