YORK'S 'most expensive' house has been sold for more than £2 million, as London and international buyers drive up prices in the city.

Estate agency Blenkin & Co says Bishopsbarns in St George’s Place, just off the Knavesmire and York Racecourse, which was sold to an undisclosed buyer, had a guide price of £2.4 million.

A spokeswoman said the property, set behind a cobbled forecourt of pebbles taken from the beach at Flamborough on the Yorkshire Coast, was believed to be York's most expensive house.

She said the property was designed in 1906 by Walter Brierley, the ‘Yorkshire Lutyens’, for his own occupation, adding: "Its garden was designed by Gertrude Jekyll, the international artist, writer and horticulturalist."

York Press:

The Press understands that the sale means the £2 million barrier for York city town houses has been broken for the first time.

Blenkin director Edward Hartshorne said: “Top flight London buyers and buyers with an international portfolio are acquiring the best city town houses and their invasion is driving up prices, particularly at the high end of the market.

"Over the past five years, the city has seen price growth of some 25 per cent. A town house in desirable Bootham Terrace, successfully sold by Blenkin Co in December 2015 for £850,000, sold previously in December 2010 for £680,000, also by Blenkin & Co."

York Press:

The firm currently had an 'outstanding' town house in Driffield Terrace on the market with a guide price of £1.75 million, with the 'manifestation of a grand Kensington terrace with a correspondingly high end bespoke interior.'

He said the current owners of this property won the York Design Award of Renovation, producing a sophisticated family house of over 5000 sq ft, with its traditional 1850s interior architecture reworked to appeal to high end contemporary tastes.

News of the sale comes only days after York Central MP Rachael Maskell said in the Commons she did not want to see a future York with only wealthier people affording to live there, as she called for affordable social rented accommodation to be built on the York Central site.