ANYONE with £1.5m to spare has the chance to buy a 600-year-old piece of English history that has a connection with Richard III.

The owners of Sheriff Hutton Castle, at the western end of the village of the same name near York, have placed it on the market.

The ruins have been an unusual garden feature for Dr Richard Howarth and his wife, Jenny, who have enjoyed viewing them from their home in a converted granary for 13 years.

The ravages of time mean there are only a few signs remaining of its former glory, but people travel from all over the world to Sheriff Hutton to see the castle from which Richard III ran the Council of the North in the 15th Century.

The sale, being handled by York estate agents Blenkin and Company, includes the castle, along with Dr and Mrs Howarth's four-bedroomed house, an adjoining cottage, outbuildings and land.

In 1919, the castle was bought by Dr Howarth's grandfather, a West Yorkshire businessman. When Dr Howarth inherited it from his father, he left his job as a senior fellow at Bangor University, in North Wales, and moved to Ryedale, where he grew up, in 1995.

He said: ''I love the castle. I can remember clambering all over it as a child. For me, it was a magical playground.

"It is incredibly atmospheric.''

Although the castle is not open to the public, visitors are shown the gatehouse, the towers and a dungeon full of bats.

According to Dr Howarth, the castle is said to have its own friendly ghost, called Nancy.

He said: "She is thought to be a servant girl and wears a black hooded coat. My father saw her several times walking across the courtyard, but we have never seen her.''

In 2003, the castle appeared on the English Heritage list of buildings at risk and Dr and Mrs Howarth secured a £450,000 grant from the organisation to try to tackle falling masonry and stabilise the remaining fabric or the structure. There are no plans for any organisation to buy the site.

Dr Howarth said: "It is stable and resilient, though bits do fall off it. My hope is that we find an eccentric buyer who loves history and has a lot of money to throw at a ruin."

The the building can be traced back to Bertram de Bulmer, Sheriff of York, but after it passed to the Neville family through marriage, it was John, Lord Neville, who in 1382 obtained a licence to turn it into a castle by crenellating the walls.

It then passed to other members of the Neville family and, with the end of their line, the castle and lands were given to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who became Richard III. He often stayed there during his time as Lord of the North and, in 1484, it became one of the two headquarters of the Council of the North. Records show it was in Royal hands until the early 17th Century.