Abandoned village with 44 homes, hostel and swimming pool on the market for £227,000

A Spanish village that has been abandoned for more than three decades is now up for sale with an asking price of £227,000 (€260,000).

Salto de Castro, in north-western Spain, has 44 homes, a bar, a hostel, a church, a school with several classrooms and a municipal swimming pool.

There is also a barracks building that once housed the Civil Guard, according to the property announcement on Spanish real estate website Idealista.

The village, located on the border with Portugal in the province of Zamora, is just a three-hour drive from the Spanish capital of Madrid.

It has most of the things you would expect from a little town, except for inhabitants who abandoned it over 30 years ago.

The town has been uninhabited for over three decades since the hydroelectric plant that was built in the 50s was shut down (MARIAM A MONTESINOS/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

People left the town after a hydroelectric plant that was built in the 50s was shut down, according to reports.

The current owner of Salto de Castro bought it at the beginning of the 2000s as he wanted to convert it into a tourist spot.

However, the project could not flourish due to the Eurozone crisis and the settlement could not be repopulated.

The owner, who is now in his 80s, wrote on Idealista that he wants to sell the town as he is an urban dweller and can no longer take care of it.

Ronnie Rodríguez, of Royal Invest, the company representing the owner, told BBC News : "The owner had the dream of having a hotel here but it was all put on hold.

"He would still like the project to come true."

After the village was put up for sale, the estate agent ad reportedly received more than 50,000, with 300 interested buyers getting in touch from countries including the UK, France, Belgium and Russia.

Salto de Castro had been previously put up for sale for as much as £5.7million (€6.5million), but since no buyers came forward and many the buildings were vandalised, the price has plummeted.

A few years ago, an entire village in Wales went on the market for £1.5million - featuring homes and cottages.

The 16 properties in Aberllefenni, south Gwynedd, had been built around a working slate mine of the same name, where quarrying dates back to the 16th century.

The slate quarry worker properties had been owned by the family of John Lloyd, of Inigo Jones Slate Works, which bought the Aberllefenni quarry back in the 1960s along with the homes.

They sold the quarry in April 2016 and then put the homes up for sale at the start of the summer.