ONE of Torteval’s oldest properties was sold at auction for £900,000 yesterday. Strong local interest saw four serious bidders for La Croisee in Route de Pleinmont soon whittled down to two.

Hundreds gathered as the non-listed property, which was one of only four farmhouses in the parish in the 1600s and includes several granite barns and outbuildings, went under the hammer.

‘It’s a family investment and it will be a single house,’ said the woman buyer, who did not wish to be named, but confirmed that her family currently owned a local market house in St Saviour’s, which they now planned to sell.

‘We are going to turn it into a sympathetic home. We will try to restore it to its traditional glory and we will try and make a nice garden,’ she said.

‘It probably went for more than we were planning but we are pleased with it and we are ready to start the plans straight away. There is a lot of potential – that is why we bought it.

‘I like the cross-shape of it and the space and how near it is to the cliffs, although it’s going to be very windy in the winter.’

As well as the dwelling, which has been uninhabited for nearly two decades, and outbuildings, the sale included the garden and four fields.

‘It’s really unusual to get a genuine old Guernsey farmhouse which is totally unmodernised,’ said Martel Maides director and auctioneer Nick Renny.

‘This is a genuine blank sheet of paper for them to work on.’

He started bidding at a ‘dirt cheap’ £650,000 and insisted there was tremendous scope to turn La Croisee into a family home.

‘It was a very successful auction and I’m not surprised at the price. It was very much in the range of what we expected. It was spirited bidding from four different parties and I’m really pleased it’s going to a family that are going to restore it to a beautiful family country home,’ said Mr Renny.

‘It demonstrated that for the right property an auction can be a very good way to sell. This property had such a wide scope of opportunity and was ideal.

‘I have no doubt when it’s finished it could be up in the top half-dozen local market properties,’ he said.

A spokesman for the vendor, who did not wish to be named, said: ‘We are really pleased – it’s slightly above what we expected. We are disappointed we could not put the time into it ourselves because it’s an enormous property and the family has owned it since 1889.’

The former owners were sad to see it go but hoped it would be restored as a farmhouse.

It still includes many original features, including a scullery, furze oven and ceiling hooks for hanging meat, as well as a fitted Guernsey dresser and cupboards.