BEECH End is an idyllic place - there are neat houses, two picturesque pubs, boating on the river and, best of all, perpetual summer. There's only one snag for would-be residents - you'd have to be just two inches tall to move in.

For Beech End is a miniature village, the culmination of more than six years' work by a couple who adopted Wensleydale as their home.

Hidden away in a corner of Leyburn, the indoor attraction is gradually gathering something of a cult following among residents and visitors.

Mr Ian Calvert and his wife, Adele, opened their labour of love to the public last summer and were delighted at the number of visitors it drew - 5,000 between July and the end of October.

The attraction lies in the detail and the interactive nature of the display. A battalion of switches, knobs and buttons allows the visitor to illuminate the interiors of individual buildings, steer riverboats and canal narrowboats, drive vehicles and activate ingenious sound effects that include cows mooing and a man singing in the bath.

"Beech End arose out of hobbies, but I stress it is not a hobby, it was always conceived as a small business," says Mr Calvert, a retired GP who was born in Middlesbrough. "I was a doctor and my wife was a teacher and that was reasonably serious stuff for 30 years, so we thought we would have a bit of fun when we retired."

Between them they constructed the buildings, vehicles and boats, added a train, customised tiny figures and installed a pump to allow the canal, river and waterfall to have real water.

Most of the houses are fictitious, but the church was modelled on one in Gloucestershire and the farm barn is based on a building not far from Leyburn.

"We added to the village over the winter, the sound effects are new, and there's a police car with flashing blue light, and we keep thinking of things to add in," said Mrs Calvert. "Visitors often suggest ideas which we hadn't thought of."

The tiny model village even keeps abreast of current affairs. "During the petrol crisis, we had signs outside the garage saying there wasn't any fuel."

The couple have introduced a "Can you find?" quiz to help people discover the miniature detail of the layout and plan a treasure hunt this summer.

"Finding the hedgehog seems to be the trickiest, and people say they walk round the village several times, spotting something new each time," says Mrs Calvert. "People easily spend one or two hours here. One visitor was up here for four hours.

"Everyone seems to enjoy it, from the age of two to grandparents. We even have grandparents who have brought their grandchildren but then come back alone for another look. We have been asked for adults-only evenings and over-60s afternoons, too."

The village also has a night sequence, when the main lights slowly dim, street and house lights come on, car headlights beam and the sky is filled with stars.

"Beech End took about six years of our spare time before we moved up here and we had the building about a year before we opened," said Mr Calvert.

The couple lived in the South but had a holiday cottage in the Yorkshire dales and were frequent visitors.

They took over the building off Commercial Square in 1999, housed the model village on the upper floor and turned the ground floor into a shop.

"We have started getting quite a few groups in," says Mrs Calvert. "We have welcomed a nursery school, a group of children from Belarus and a pack of cubs.

"We began a visitors' book this year and the comments, particularly from the children, say it all - such as 'I couldn't drag my dad away.'"

l Beech End is signposted from Commercial Square and open from 10.30-5pm at bank holiday weekends and during school holidays, and some afternoons and weekends at other times. To check, tel 01969 625400. Admission is £1.80 adults, £1.50 pensioners and £1.20 under-14s. Stairs are gentle, but there is no access as yet for people confined to wheelchairs.