FORMER churches are fetching big money in North Yorkshire and County Durham after they have been converted into houses or apartments.

The former Roman Catholic church of St Lawrence at Lartington, near Barnard Castle, has been sold for almost £500,000 by a couple who have owned it since it closed in 1999.

The converted chapel at the former convent school in Richmond is also being offered for a similar price.

Fr Wilf Elkin, of St Mary's, Barnard Castle, forecast that more churches in small parishes would close.

"There will be an increase in closures as time goes by with there being insufficient parishioners. You can't do anything without money," he said.

Fr Elkin said that Lartington parishioners had been very loyal, but there were not enough of them to keep the church going.

The property consists of a large presbytery and church with tower.

It has been the home of Mr and Mrs K T Summers and their three children, who converted the former church to be part of their five-bedroomed house.

They have sold it to an Essex buyer for the asking price of £485,000. The former presbytery is called Postgate House after Blessed Nicholas Postgate, North Yorkshire's "martyr of the moors."

Sandra Summers said she and her husband, who are not Roman Catholics, had converted the church building into a living room and office downstairs with bedrooms upstairs, as well as using the former priest's house. But the bell-tower had had nothing done to it.

"We've had a nice time here. It's been lovely. There's a plaque in Latin in the church and the remains of a font."

A Middlesbrough diocesan spokesman said the diocese's present policy was for its redundant buildings, mostly priests' houses, to be rented, not sold, with income going to parishes.

The chapel at the former convent school in Reeth Road, Richmond, is on the market for £495,000.

Bradford and Bingley describe it as a "penthouse apartment renovated to a high standard" with four bedrooms on two floors.

Mr and Mrs Stephen Parker paid £195,000 for the apartment when they bought it in 2000 and have "done a fair bit of work on it."

Josie Parker said it had been "wonderful" to live there, with its 30ft ceilings, arches and good views over Swaledale.

They are moving to somewhere smaller in Richmond now that their children have moved out.

David Liddle, a director of Carlbury Developments of Darlington, said it paid £1m to another developer for the whole convent site in 1999.

The 153-year-old former convent has been converted into 22 apartments and houses with some new properties built in the grounds.

The convent graveyard, holding 70 graves of nuns and pupils, has been kept separate. The Assumption Sisters maintain it and retain the right to be buried there.