PROPERTY buyers in North Yorkshire will have to go underground to snap up an unusual des res coming on to the market this week.

A concrete-lined, one-bedroom nuclear bunker is up for auction in Pickering and could fetch as much as £8,000.

The subterranean hideout, built in the 1950s at the height of the Cold War, will be sold on internet auction site Ebay alongside 12 others dotted around the country.

Patrick Welby-Everard, of chartered surveyors JH Walter, who are handling the sale, said buyers were being given a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

"It's very unlikely you will ever be able to get a chance to buy one again," he said.

The bunkers were bought by a telecommunications company when they were decommissioned a decade ago by the MoD.

Mr Welby-Everard said only the few remaining bunkers which did not carry communications masts were now being sold.

Updated: 11:36 Wednesday, May 21, 2003