ALMOST 30 years after he installed the now iconic shark to his Headington house, Oxford Mail columnist and radio presenter Bill Heine still gets chills down his spine when he sees it.

Now the house in New High Street is back on the rental market and Mr Heine has given the paper a tour around the property.

The house features three en-suite bathrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen, utility room and — the radio presenter’s favourite room — a conservatory full of plants.

It is on the market for £2,300 a month and is perfect for a small family, as long as they don’t mind people taking pictures of the sculpture on the roof.

Mr Heine bought the house on April 15, 1986, but said the happy occasion was marred by news that US planes had bombed Tripoli in Libya.

He said: “It was a time when I should have felt like celebrating because I had bought a house, but I didn’t.”

Mr Heine said instead he sat opposite the house drinking with his friend, sculptor John Buckley, as the sun set.

The BBC Radio Oxford presenter said: “We were sitting there and the sun was going down and we were using the footpath as a table and John said it is a very ordinary house.

“I said yes it may be but it is my ordinary house, and he said maybe we could do something to it.”

He added: “When I walk down the street and there is this little robin sitting on the dorsal fin and singing its heart out, I still get a chill down my spine after all these years.”

Mr Heine said the reason he no longer lives at the house is because he received a death threat after writing an article about a paedophile who had started a child model agency.

He said the last tenants, the Bennett family, had embraced the shark — and the publicity that came with it — but had decided to move on to buy a house of their own, leaving him needing to find a new family.