Generations of children have passed them and stopped to have a look, pat them, and wave at the house where they live.

But now the popular amphibian landmarks look ready to hop it.

Two green frogs which have perched on a retired couple’s wall for almost thirty years are set to move on to pastures new.

Freddie and Flora have sat on their lily pads on the gate posts of Maureen and retired engineer Joseph Arnfield’s home on Whalley Road for 27 years.

But the pair are moving on with the couple to their new home as they’ve decided to sell their house. Maureen said: “I’ve got very bad knees and I need something flat like a bungalow so we’ve put our house on the market.

“We’d like something a bit quieter away from the main road.”

The couple picked up the pottery amphibians on holiday over two decades ago, and they have been a permanent fixture in their garden ever since, attracting the attention of generations of children.

Maureen said: “I picked them up when we were on holiday down south years ago. We brought them home, painted them, green of course, and put them on top of the gate posts. I couldn’t believe when we first put them up how many people stopped to look at them, and it just seems to have become a bit of a ritual for the children since then.

“They attracted a lot of attention, kids going past the house stopped to pat them, and now we see children that used to stop and look at the frogs all grown up with children of their own and they’re still going past and showing the frogs to their own little ones.

“If we see them we wave and they wave back I feel I know so many of the kiddies through our frogs, we’ve watched them grow up.

“People always know where to find us, if we have people visiting or a parcel being delivered, we just tell them to look out for the frogs.

“We’ve had a few strange reactions when we’ve told them that but they’ve always found us.”

Maureen, 73 from Whalley Road in Clayton-le-Moors said she and her husband have to paint Freddie and Flora during school hours or at night so the children don’t touch them when the paint is wet. She said: “We have had cars stopping outside noting down the name of our house if they are on a car treasure hunt or quiz night, and people passing stop to have a look at them. But we wanted to let people know that the frogs will be moving on to new ponds.

“We will probably take them with us, but the problem is they’re screwed in and have been for a lot of years so I’m afraid of breaking them

If the person who buys our house will look after them, I’d consider keeping them there, but I’d be loathed to leave them, I really would.”

Great-grandmother Maureen, a retired registrar said she will miss the children and their parents coming past on their way to school every day. The couple have not yet found a new home.

She said: “The school is quite close by and the children come from the estate round the back and up on to the main road.

“Everybody wants to know what is going to happen to Freddie and Flora once we move.

“We haven’t had any offers for people to adopt them yet.”