The picturesque Lancashire hamlet The Good Life's Dame Penelope Keith fell in love with
Dame Penelope married Lancastrian Rod Timson in 1978.
Acclaimed actress Dame Penelope Keith, who died this week, had a very soft spot for Lancashire.
It is reported that the Surrey-born Good Life Star had spoken of retiring to Wycoller, a tiny hamlet in Pendle, with her Burnley-born former detective husband, Rod Timson.
In the 1980s, the couple bought a cottage and derelict barn in Wycoller, the reputed setting for Ferndean Manor in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.
They had planned to convert the barn into a six-bedtroomed guest house, but villagers objected and appealed to the then Pendle MP, tourism minister John Lee. The couple were eventually granted permission to transform the barn into house, and Beckside House was created - using stone brought in from Yorkshire, so it would appear to have always been there.
The two-storey property has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, extensive gardens and a double garage.
The couple never lived in the house full-time and after tiring of long commutes from the South, they put it on the market in 2000. According to the Daily Mail, the actress did not initially want to let it go, preferring to rent it rather than sell. But Peter and Denise Shoesmiths had fallen for Beckside House and in 2001, Ms Keith was persuaded to let them make it their own.
But her love for the picture-perfect hamlet was not dimmed. In fact, so enamoured was Penelope with Wycoller that she featured it in episode two of her popular Channel 4 series Penelope Keith’s Hidden Villages, long after she had left it.
Beckside House was last sold in April 2021 for £505,000. It has recently been offered for rent for £2,250 per month.