A church in Doncaster that sold for nearly three times guide price and flats in Sheffield that went for the highest bid of the day drove MARK JENKINSON'S busy first auction of the year.

Their £2.4million auction was one of the first sales of the year nationally and the first in the region, with a 'huge response' for the redundant chapel building in Warmsworth, Doncaster, which attracted more than 100 enquiries.

The 1930s brick building and land had a guide price of £75,000 but sold for £204,000, while the top price of the day of £565,000 was for the three-story semi-detached building made up of five flats on Ranmoor Road in Sheffield, which had been listed at £475,000.

Other Sheffield residential properties going under the hammer included a three-bedroom terrace house on Falconer Lane with a guide price of £78,000 which sold for £93,500, a flat on Townhead Street with a guide price of £55,000 which sold for £75,000, and a traditional bay windowed semi-detached house in Greystones listed at £200,000 which went for £280,000.

Also sold at the auction, held at The Platinum Suite, Sheffield United Football Club, was a former 12-plot garage site in the popular residential suburb of Frecheville listed at £35,000 which sold for £52,000.

Adrian Little, Head of the Auction Department at Mark Jenkinson and Son, said: "We have started the first auction of the year for our region strongly thanks to a very busy room, the huge response to the chapel building, and overall £2.4 million raised – as well as offers of interest in all of the handful of unsold lots.

"More than 30 lots are in for our February auction – including a Grade II listed house at Stannington – and multiple entries are already being taken for our April auction as well."