Regional local authority properties – including a garage site that went for more than four times guide price – drove sales of more than £5m at the biggest auction of the year for Mark Jenkinson and Son.

The number of telephone and proxy bids were at an ‘all-time high’ at the fifth and largest sale of the year so far, with 53 lots going under the hammer at the auction which lasted more than two hours.

All the lots offered by Hull City Council and Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council were sold, including the garage site at Silkstone in Barnsley which achieved more than four times initial guide of £90,000, selling for £378,000. Another former garage site at Athersley South tripled its guide price of £10,000, selling for £34,000.

There was ‘huge interest’ in the ground rents/freeholds of five former pubs in Hull, all of which went under the hammer at £5,000 but sold for between £13,000 and £45,000.

Top price of the day at the auction, held at The Platinum Suite, Sheffield United Football Club, was for a house and land on Stonelow Road, Dronfield. Offered on behalf of the Diocese of Hallam, the detached house, with residential planning in principle, had a guide price of £375,000, but went for £455,000.

Other properties going under the hammer included a Grade II listed former schoolroom adjoining Banner Cross Methodist church with planning for residential which sold for £250,000, while a Greenbelt garage site in Dungworth achieved nearly four times its guide price at £20,000.

Head of the Auction Department Adrian Little said: “This very busy auction was our largest so far this year thanks to the variety of properties on offer – particularly the assets being sold on behalf of regional local authorities.

“The number of telephone and Proxy bids were at an all-time high with freehold ground rents in Hull attracting huge interest from local and national investors.

“As well as the five freehold reversion or freehold ground rent former pubs, freehold land two miles from Hull City Centre doubled its guide price selling at £80,000.

“A sale by auction is perfect for establishing value on unusual lots including ground rents, where valuation is very much a matter of personal opinion and not dissimilar to ‘pinning the tail on the donkey’.”