A VACATED care home has gone up for sale three months after closing down.

The former Ainsworth Nursing Home in Knowsley Road has been listed on Zoopla as a "development opportunity" for potential buyers.

Estate agent Sharpes Property has received offers in the region of £2,100,000 for the 3.76-acre plot.

The site was most recently in operation as a 33-bedroom nursing home but was used as an isolation hospital for smallpox patients in the 1900s.

In November last year, 24 residents had to be relocated after the owner took the decision to shut the premises.

Director Dr Shanu Subbiah, who previously worked at Townside Primary Care Centre, notified both Bury Council and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) of the site's impeding closure.

Sharpes Property described the site as "a very attractive residential development opportunity."

As part of the advertisement, they said: "We have been advised by our client that a pre-planning application for conversion and redevelopment has been submitted to the local authority."

The main building, located at the bottom of an access road, comprises 33 bedrooms, two lounges, dining rooms and two conservatories.

There are also two detached buildings, a bungalow and a number of other buildings at the gated site.

When it was founded in 1906, the site operated as an isolation hospital for smallpox patients, under the name of Ainsworth Isolation Hospital and later as the Hospital for Smallpox.

The Bolton News archives record an emergency use in 1966, when 11 smallpox victims were admitted.

Between 1913 and 1921, the home was also used for tuberculosis patients.

The isolation hospital closed in the 1982 and was converted before opening as a nursing and residential home in 1986.

At the time of its latest inspection, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said it "required improvement."

A spokeswoman for Bury Council told the Bury Times at the time of the closure last year: "The decision to close was the owners. The council has supported the owner in managing the closure over a period of weeks. "Residents have been moved to various homes throughout the borough in consultation with them, their families or their advocates or appointees."