Entrepreneurs and businessmen are queuing up to pay more than £1m for detached Victorian houses, property consultants have revealed.

Carter Jonas said the property boom in the city was continuing to grow rapidly after putting a Victorian-Gothic mansion at 9 Norham Gardens, north Oxford - which needs at least £150,000 spent on it - up for auction at a guide price of more than £1.2m.

Although it wasn't sold outright, there was plenty of interest in the property and negotiations are continuing, with the international estate agents confident that agreement will be reached within weeks. Mark Charter, a partner in charge of the residential department at Carter Jonas in Banbury Road, said part of the secret was that, being just off Banbury Road and so close to St Giles and the city, the 19th-century building has one of the city's best addresses.

The house is given a mention in Nikolaus Pevsner's 1974 study of the buildings of Oxfordshire, where he calls the house, designed by Charles Buckeridge in 1862-3, the most characterful in the road, "stern and ecclesiastical in mood", with a turret to one side. Mr Charter added: "£1m homes are no longer a rarity if you have a quality, detached Victorian house in specific north Oxford streets. This particular property has one of the best addresses in Oxford.

"There is no shortage of interest and the interest comes from all sectors.

"You have Oxford entrepreneurs and businessmen, London-generated money and people relocating from London. There is also foreign money coming into Oxford, with Australians and Americans interested in buying properties here."

Story date: Friday 29 October

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.