A sale has been agreed for one of Tendring's most important tourist attractions, it was revealed today.

But the new owner of historic St Osyth Priory remains a mystery.

Jonathan Veale, senior surveyor at Bidwell's Ipswich office which is handling the sale, said: "All I can reveal at this stage is that a sale has been agreed and it will be up to the purchaser to make themselves known in due course.

"We hope to move to exchange of contracts on Friday and things are going forward fairly quickly."

The priory was up for sale as one lot with a price tag of £1.7million or in various individual lots.

Mr Veale said the sale which had been agreed was for the entire priory. It was originally put on the market in May 1997 by the executors of the late Somerset de Chair at a price of £2.35million.

Two previous deals fell through - one of those being with Smiths Farms (Clacton) which had put forward an open farm project for part of the site.

The company also put in an offer this time around but has not been successful.

Guy Smith, a spokesman for the firm, said that he was confused over what had happened.

"We understood on Thursday that we had put in the only offer for the whole lot and were given an indication that we had been successful," he said.

"We were asked if we were in a position to complete and exchange and whether the money could be transferred by our bank. Then on Saturday we were told that a sale had been agreed with another party."

"It has left us confused and we will be very interested to learn who has bought the Priory."

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