A TINY former telephone exchange in Beaminster has just sold at auction for £85,000 - £60,000 over the guide price.

Bidding was fierce with six bidders all keen to buy the property, which has a frontage of 24ft by 9.6ft with room to park a car and a little entrance hall of 9.2ft by 6.10 and a 4.6ft x 6.10 closet with WC and basin and a main room of 32.10ft by 14ft. .Auctioneer Mark Lewis said he was surprised by the price it fetched.

"The reserve was the guide price and if someone had bid that that's what it would have gone for but there were six bidders in total on it.

"There was one lady who was there with her family who had set her heart on it but she didn't get it, the price just went too high."

Beaminster farmer John Lake, who sold the exchange, said: "I was pleased with the result. I sold for slightly more than I expected but I had no idea what it would fetch." Mr Lake bought the former exchange in 1977 and used it for storing agricultural machinery parts.

Beaminster Town Councillor Douglas Beazer said it was a truly amazing price to pay for a small property with no ground.

"That's astonishing. I didn't realise a little old telephone exchange was worth that sort of money. That's just an indication of the prices people are willing to pay.

"But it is and always has been my concern that property going for such high prices means that local people can't afford to live here. People form outside come in and pay these sorts of prices, not that there is anything wrong with people coming in it is just that they rocket the price for local people and then local people who work in the town have to move away and then the town will die. But there is not a lot we can do about it until legislation changes."

Symonds and Sampson were selling the exchange at auction, along with several other lots, at an auction in Poundbury.