IT'S not much more than a hole in the ground - albeit a hole with reinforced concrete walls built to withstand an atomic bomb.

But to someone, somewhere, it represents the ideal home - and they have snapped it up for £17,100.

The old nuclear bunker on Beacon Hill, above Pickering, North Yorkshire, was manned by the Royal Observer Corps in the bad old days of the Cold War.

When it came up for sale, along with 12 others, on Internet auction site ebay, it generated a frenzy of bidding from people wanting their own slice of 20th Century history.

Altogether, the sale realised more than £170,000. A bunker at Flookborough, in the Lake District, went for £25,000. Another, at Dent, in the Dales, fetched £11,300.

"It was phenomenal. There's no other word for it," said Patrick Welby, of agents JH Walter, in Lincoln

The bunkers were among 200 that were acquired by Crown Castle International from the Ministry of Defence in 1992 and about 160 of them were used as bases for communications masts.

What uses the new owners intend for their bunkers have still to be seen.

"One person suggested he'd use his as a sort of concrete tent while another was an amateur rocket enthusiast who saw the bunker as a launch area," said Mr Welby.

"But the strangest one was the chap who wanted to use it as a bunker if we are attacked by UFOs."