AN offer has been made to buy most of a North Yorkshire village, which is being marketed following the death of its owner.

Estate agents said West Heslerton, near Pickering, included a 21-bedroom mansion West Heslerton Hall, a pub, petrol station, 43 homes and 2,116 acres of land.

Cundalls, which put the village on the market earlier this year with a guide price of £20m, said a potential buyer had made an offer, but declined to detail what parts of the estate it included.

The firm said there had been a lot of interest from many potential buyers in the village.

The village has a population of about 375 people.

The estate has been owned by the Dawnay family for more than 150 years and the last owner, Eve Dawnay, inherited it in in 1964 on the death of her father. She died five years ago at the age of 84.

She was a spinster and, as there is no immediate single heir, the family have decided the most sensible option is to sell the estate.

A Cundalls spokesman said that in an ideal world the family would like the estate to remain as a whole.