The former seafront home of Lord Olivier has been sold for £795,000.

The name of the purchaser is currently being kept secret by estate agents Fox and Sons but it is thought to have been bought by a high-profile couple with links with showbusiness.

Computer software millionaire Graeme Knott, 52, has exchanged contracts on the house in Royal Crescent, Brighton, he had lived in for the past eight years.

He has seen the property rise in price by more than £145,000 since July 1999 when it was first on the market for £650,000. Mr Knott saw the price soar as he let out the property while he toured the world and sailed in the Caribbean.

The five-storey house is one of the few in the Regency terrace that has not been converted into flats.

Simon Fuller, the man who created and managed The Spice Girls, owns one of the other four-storey houses.

The 12-room house, with unparalleled views of Brighton seafront between the Marina and Palace Pier, was bought by Lord Olivier for £20,000 in 1960.

He liked the area so much that he bought the next-door property as well and lived their with his wife Joan Plowright and their children for 18 years before moving to an Elizabethan manor house near Steyning where he died in 1989 aged 82.

A blue plaque has been put on the front wall as a reminder of the days when the grand house was lived in by one of Britain's finest actors.