'Cupboard' sold for pounds 30,000

London's fabled broom-cupboard market, which reached its zenith in the late 1980s when enormous sums changed hands for flats hardly big enough to fit in a fully grown adult, is showing signs of recovery.

Knight Frank and Rutley, the estate agents, yesterday announced that they sold a 'one of the smallest flats in Kensington' for something approaching pounds 30,000.

The flat, in a Victorian block in Sheffield Terrace, consists of a combined living room/ diner/ bedroom of 14ft by 12ft with separate shower.

The agents said they were 'pleased' with the price, although prices have yet to achieve levels realised in 1987. In that year a converted broom cupboard, 5.5ft by 11ft with a 2.5ft-square lavatory and shower room, in Princes Court, Brompton Road, Knightsbridge, was sold for pounds 36,500.