In estate agents' parlance, it has herbaceous borders and original features but needs some modernisation.

To everyone else, the unremarkable-looking building is a boarded-up former public toilet.

The loo in Pevensey Bay, near Eastbourne, has just sold for £70,000.

The property, complete with a small plot of grass, was placed on the market in June by Wealden District Council whose officials considered it surplus to requirements.

It is believed the buyer, who is abroad, plans to transform the single-storey building in Richmond Road into a home.

Estate agent Sarah Curran, of Stiles Harold Williams in Gildredge Road, Eastbourne, said there had been a lot of interest.

She said: "It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say we fielded calls from interested people almost every day. We received masses and masses of calls about it.

"People would ring up incredibly embarrassed to ask for details about a former public loo, while others would call us up and just say, 'About the bog . . . '

"One person even thought it was a chapel. We got a buyer almost as soon as it was put on the market in June but because of various things the sale was not completed until December.

"Most people knew it used to be a public loo yet it certainly hasn't affected interest in it.

"In fact, it really has captured people's imaginations.

"People seem to have had a vision for creating something lovely out of it. Plus it is affordable, making it suitable for smaller buyers and developers and for retired people thinking of turning it into a holiday chalet."

Stiles Harold Williams have handled other intriguing property sales in Eastbourne.

In April last year, The Argus revealed how a property once owned by notorious John "Dr Death" Bodkin-Adams in Trinity Trees fetched more than £600,000.

The four-storey Victorian building - thrust into the spotlight in the mid-Fifties when Bodkin-Adams was accused of murdering a patient - spent less than eight weeks on the market.

Of the loo sale, John Deller, the council's estates management officer, said: "It was deemed surplus to requirements when the new public convenience opened in Sea Road a couple of years ago.

"We felt it was pointless having two public conveniences so close by."