Revealed: Incredible value of four-bedroom home where beloved 70s sitcom The Good Life was filmed

Beloved 70s amusement The Good Life was 1 of the astir enduringly fashionable of each British sitcoms, and was adjacent adored by the precocious Queen Elizabeth. 

Cited adjacent present arsenic utile shorthand for suburban social-climbing types ('the caller neighbours are a spot Margo-and-Jerry', it made its debut 50 years agone this week, not with a squeal but a squelch.

The spot utilized arsenic the Goods' location was owned by Michael and Margaret Mullins successful Kewferry Road, Northwood, Middlesex. 

The Mullinses, who bought the spot 2 years before, fto the plot beryllium dug up truthful they could commencement afresh aft filming.

The location adjacent doorway wherever Margo and Jerry 'lived' changed hands twice. By 1978 it was owned by the Tindalls, who were grilled by Inland Revenue implicit reports the BBC was giving them capable to wage disconnected their mortgage. 

They said the proceeds 'might person taken a mates of friends retired for a meal, but that was astir it'. 

Today, however, the four-bedroom location is worthy an unthinkable magnitude - arsenic the property, which was bought for £475,000 successful 2007, would fetch £1.5million today.

Written by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, The Good Life aired for the archetypal clip connected Friday 4 April 1975 astatine 8.30pm connected BBC1, pitched against Des O'Connor Entertains connected ITV. The amiable crooner O'Connor, it seemed, didn't person overmuch to interest about.

Viewing figures were lacklustre, and the adjacent day's reviews for this drama astir a middle-aged, middle-class mates swapping the rat contention for suburban self-sufficiency were, astatine best, middling. 

The BBC's ain Audience Research Report came backmost with immoderate damning adjectives. In the eyes of immoderate unimpressed viewers, the archetypal episode, titled Plough Your Own Furrow, was 'childish', 'tedious' and 'unfunny'.

Ratings improved successful the ensuing weeks but not capable to halt the caller sitcom's starring man, Richard Briers, fretting that the sustainability premise had fallen connected stony ground. 

By taking the relation of Tom Good, whose 40th day (and being overlooked for a institution cricket match) is the catalyst for a melodramatic manner change, helium thought helium mightiness conscionable person made 'a unspeakable mistake'.

Instead, arsenic it turned out, helium had been fixed the portion of a lifetime. Tom was some maddening and endearing, and Briers played him to perfection. 

No little unforgettable were Felicity Kendal, who played Tom's dippy, spirited woman Barbara, and the brace formed arsenic their friends and neighbours, the imperious but lovable snob Margo Leadbetter, appalled to spot the next-door plot dug up and turned into an allotment, and her long-suffering hubby Jerry (who secretly admired the initiative). 

Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington brought the Leadbetters to beingness with the astir immaculate comic timing.

Gradually, the viewing nationalist realised that The Good Life was amended than good; it was wonderful. 

By the autumn of 1976, with the 3rd bid successful afloat plaything and adjacent Geraldine the goat elevated to a household name, it was attracting upwards of 17 cardinal viewers each week. 

That was good implicit a 3rd of Britain's population. And 1 of them was the Queen, who seldom missed it. 

Later, determination was adjacent a royal bid performance, a peculiar occurrence recorded successful 1978 with the Queen successful the assemblage and a tiny brouhaha brewing backstage, due to the fact that Eddington, a left-leaning Quaker, had declared that helium would not consciousness comfy bowing to the sovereign aft the show. In the lawsuit helium did bow, but went 'a spot pink'.

Much of The Good Life's occurrence was to bash with the prime of John Esmonde and Bob Larbey's penning and their glorious characters, but the show's peculiar genius, the crushed it lives connected successful mundane sermon ('I perceive they've gone each Tom-and-Barbara!'), laic successful the casting.

It wasn't meant to crook retired the mode it did. Producer John Howard Davies (who'd had his ain burst of acting fame arsenic the rubric quality successful David Lean's 1948 movie Oliver Twist) primitively wanted the gentle Scottish histrion Hannah Gordon to play Barbara. And for Jerry helium wanted Peter Bowles.

In the event, some politely declined, and Briers ne'er fto Bowles hide it. When they starred unneurotic successful the Alan Ayckbourn play Absent Friends, Briers was everlastingly winding Bowles up, knocking connected his dressing country doorway to archer him he'd conscionable received different hefty cheque for The Good Life.

Maybe the amusement would inactive person been a hit, but it is intolerable present to ideate The Good Life without the joyous surface chemistry of Briers, Kendal, Eddington and Keith. Briers was already a star, yet the second 3 were each but chartless to mainstream tv audiences. 

Keith's astir striking surface relation had been arsenic a lesbian German au brace successful the 1970 movie Every Home Should Have One, a smutty enactment drama written by Marty Feldman, Barry Took and Denis Norden.

She past edged somewhat person to Margo arsenic the overbearing Clara Hittaway successful the BBC's 26-part adaptation of Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels. 

And arsenic soon as he formed her, Davies knew he'd struck gold. She was a cleanable acceptable arsenic 'that middle-class, somewhat authoritative pistillate with a interaction of [dog trainer] Barbara Woodhouse astir her and a sexiness that was indefinable'.

There was thing hard to specify astir Felicity Kendal's sexiness arsenic Barbara, and cipher objected erstwhile she won the archetypal yearly Rear of the Year rubric successful 1981, backmost successful the days erstwhile specified awards were deemed guiltless amusive alternatively than rampantly sexist. 

Davies formed her arsenic Barbara aft seeing her successful different Ayckbourn play, The Norman Conquests, and it was past Kendal who recommended Eddington. One of British television's large drama quartets was complete.

It wasn't conscionable the prime of actors that made The Good Life special, it was besides the mounting for the 2 couples' assorted misadventures. 

The existent thoroughfare was successful Northwood, Middlesex (see left), but it was different masterstroke by Esmonde and Larbey to fictionalise it arsenic The Avenue, Surbiton.

Self-sufficiency successful Surbiton wasn't conscionable nicely alliterative, it was also, somehow, a consummately comic idea. 

The Avenue, too, was the cleanable name, encapsulating the middle-class gentility exemplified successful specified antithetic ways by the Goods and the Leadbetters.

By the clip the amusement came to an extremity successful 1978, aft 4 series, the 4 principals were each keen to effort pastures new. But Briers was nether nary illusions. 'That's it, Penny,' helium told Keith. 'It doesn't substance what we bash now, The Good Life is what we volition beryllium remembered for.'

With Eddington going connected to marque the sublime Yes Minister, that's arguable. But surely The Good Life (destined, of course, to beryllium repeated for the remainder of time) made a mighty interaction successful its 3 abbreviated years. 

By 1980, a grounds 51,000 smallholdings had sprouted up successful Britain, and everyone knew the main crushed why.

• The Good Life is connected request connected ITVX Premium and Sky/NOW.