An engineer who helped design Bradford's own 'Dome' today told how he helped two eccentric brothers realise their stargazing dream.

John Hodgkinson, now boss of the Elliott Musgrave pattern-making firm in Bradford, was asked by the brothers who owned The Towers at Clayton to help them build a rooftop window on the stars.

Memories of the once-in-a-lifetime project were stirred for Mr Hodgkinson when the six-bedroom home came on the market again recently.

The turreted house sits high above the village and Mr Hodgkinson became so fascinated by the brothers' plans he gave his expertise and time free to help build the private observatory with a telescope inside.

Mr Hodgkinson, whose firm makes wood patterns, or moulds, was approached by the previous owners of the house, brothers Vernie and Harold Whitehead, when they wanted his help in constructing the observatory.

Fascinated by their project, he waived his fees and advised the pair for a year in the mid-1970s while they fashioned the dome.

"Unlike the Dome of current controversy, this dome was entirely successful - and at no cost to the taxpayer!" Mr Hodgkinson said. "It was unheated, unfortunately, and decidedly nippy on the best nights for stargazing."

The brothers, both bachelors, inherited the house from their father Julius who owned the clay pipe works nearby - now demolished.

Their passion was inventing and as well as the observatory and telescope they devised an elaborate automated system of watering and feeding their home- grown tomatoes, in a greenhouse heated by North Sea gas. They also had an alarm system to alert them if intruders entered the derelict pipe works.

"A wire was fitted inside the building, attached to a sash weight suspended in a drainpipe," Mr Hodgkinson recalled. "When a visitor came through a window, his leg brushed the wire, releasing the weight, which slid down the pipe, pulling the cord and turning the handle of a hand-cranked telephone, which rang in the house, way up the valley."

Mr Hodgkinson has fond memories of visits to the Towers, even though the brothers' habits were decidedly eccentric.

He said: "I was taken into the kitchen to meet Harold, Vernie's brother, and their beloved cat, which lived on the hot shelf of the cast-ironYorkshire range.

"They asked if I would like a biscuit, and opened one of the huge cupboards to reveal more Carr's Table Water Biscuits than Morrisons have in stock.

"They said they were quite fond of them, but I think they lived on them.

"Harold, the grumpier of the two (but not by a long way) had a passion for gardening. He made a large metering unit, that could be filled with Phostrogen - they were as big on Phostrogen as they were on Carr's Table Water Biscuits - attached to a hose.

"As the tomatoes in the heated greenhouse were watered, the precise dose of Phostrogen was metered in. Harold was cropping toms like footballs in February."