Ownership of a popular Cumbrian hotel with a near-£1m price tag is poised to swap hands.

The Greenhill Hotel, near Wigton, it has been confirmed, has now been sold, subject to contract - just over four months after being put on the market by auction company Hopes.

A spokesman for the mart said an 'acceptable' offer for the hotel had been made by an unnamed local businessman and his wife.

The hotel had an asking price of £950,000.

Hopes land agent, Ian Ritchie confirmed an offer had been made and accepted and added: "It is all done and dusted, bar the legal paperwork."

Hopes said it had put the sandstone listed building on the market to help tackle the mart's debts, which at the time totalled £6.6m.

The company had diversified into the hotel trade in 2007 when it bought the Golf Hotel in Silloth. This was sold last year.

Leisure property specialists Fleurets had been instructed by the auction company to market The Greenhill Hotel, which had a reported turnover last year of £731,000.

The 12-roomed Georgian mansion is set in roughly nine-acres of parkland and also has a large car park and extensive grounds.

As the hotel went on the market, a Hopes spokesman said: "The Greenhill Hotel is not our primary focus as livestock auctioneering, together with estate and land agencies make up the core of our business, and therefore we are not able to dedicate the attention that we would like to Greenhill."

Hopes have also sold another of its assets, a farmhouse, buildings and land at Low Houses, for £1.85m in three lots to a local businessman and two local farmers.

The company are also in negotiations with Allerdale Council to clear its former auction mart site in Wigton town centre.

A spokesman said they had received conservation area consent but still needed listed building consent to demolish buildings on the 12-acre site.

Its old High Street site has been the subject of much rumour and speculation since Tesco performed a U-turn in late 2014 after earmarking it as a location for a new supermarket.

It is believed interest in the old site has been shown by both another supermarket company and a house building group.

Hopes moved to its new multi-million pound auction mart premises on Syke Road three years ago.