Reports of the death of the London property market may be premature. A gap between two shops has sold at auction for more than a quarter of a million pounds.

When the hammer came down on the 0.016 acre site, which is currently a hole between other buildings but has planning permission for a studio, it had fetched £260,000, more than four times its £55,000 guide price.

The thin strip of land, a passageway between a coffee shop and a charity shop, is on the Northcote Road in Battersea, south London, an area where prices have rocketed by 24% over the past year. Nearby, one-bedroom flats regularly change hands for more than £500,000.

Described in the Savills auction catalogue as “a rectangular shaped site forming a passageway between two retail units”, the plot has permission for the buyer to create a ground floor entrance and first floor extension beneath and behind the existing building which it will offer around 900 square feet of live/work space.

You might need tunnel vision to imagine that from its current looks, but apparently there were plenty of people keen to mind the gap.

Chris Coleman-Smith, head of Savills auctions, said: “The vendor of Lot 144 was pragmatic and realistic with his guide price. In the run up to the auction we received a great deal of interest in the passageway and so we were expecting competitive bidding today.”