'Buckingham Palace lookalike' flats snapped up

A block of luxury flats which locals and newspapers have likened to Buckingham Palace has sold out soon after the building was completed.

The flats are in Poundbury village in Dorset, the architectural project of Prince Charles.

The eight properties are within Strathmore House, which was named after the late Queen Mother's family.

Designed in the neo-classical style, it boasts a central portico and Corinthian columns similar to Buckingham Palace.

Sam Cook, the manager of Parkers Property Consultants, which marketed the scheme, said all the flats sold out earlier this summer.

"We haven't had to do much. They've sold themselves," she said. "They've flown off the shelves."

However she denied that the architects, Quinlan and Francis Terry, had based the design on the Queen's London residence.

"It wasn't supposed to look like Buckingham Palace. It wasn't their intention," she told the BBC.

Poundbury is Prince Charles's architectural project

Kim Slowe, the managing director of the building's developers, ZeroC, said any similarity to Buckingham Palace was coincidental.

"Everything they build has a classical style, so everything tends to look like Buckingham Palace," he said.

Instead the design is said to be based on a building in Switzerland.

The flats ranged in price from £575,000 to £750,000. See inside them here.