John Lennon's First Home Sold At Cavern Auction

John Lennon's childhood home in Liverpool has been sold at auction for £480,000 - much higher than was expected.

The three-bedroom red brick terrace was his first house and where the Beatles legend lived with his parents and grandparents until he was five.

The property, which had a guide price of £150,000, was bought by an American who is a big fan of the Fab Four.

But the person was not at the auction at the city's Cavern Club, where the band played nearly 300 times.

Instead, the new owner made the winning bid via the telephone.

The house is on Newcastle Road in the famous Penny Lane area of Liverpool which inspired many of Lennon's songs. The area is still visited by Beatles fans.

The modest family home has a lounge, family room and kitchen with three bedrooms, and a family bathroom upstairs. There is a walled backyard outside.

Stephen Giddins from Entwistle Green estate agents earlier told Sky News the owners decided to sell the house at auction because they simply did not know how much it would sell for.

"It's very difficult to put a price on a house like this because you don't know what someone who is a huge Beatles fan will be prepared to pay to live in John Lennon's former home.

"We've had interest from across the whole of the UK and we've got at least a couple of people wanting to bid from the United States over the telephone."

Mr Giddins said among those he had shown round the house since it's been on the market was John Lennon's half-sister, Julia Baird.

"She wasn't looking at the house with a view to buying it, she was just really keen to come and see the house to remind herself of the time that she lived here.

"She referred to the fact that the back bedroom was John's bedroom, her parents were in the room next door and her grandparents slept in the main front bedroom.

"She recalls there were always lots of children playing in the alley out the back of the house and how they made a swing in their backyard for all their friends to play on."

The previous owner told the Liverpool Echo: "I'll be sad to leave John Lennon's first home, but I am retired now and would really like a property with a bigger garden.

"I have made sure original features have been preserved so that they reflect the 1960s period, when The Beatles wowed the whole world with their rock and roll music.

"The main structure of the house and features, such as the original Victorian sliding sash windows, are as they were when John Lennon lived here with his parents and his grandparents from 1940 onwards."