The six-bedroom house is for sale at �200,000

Mr Roberts said: "This house could become a shrine to England's most distinctive artist.

"The Bronte sisters' house in West Yorkshire has turned Haworth into a tourist attraction and Monet's house in France has made Giverny a mecca for art lovers."

Laurence Stephen Lowry is one of the most popular British artists of the 20th Century.

Last year his painting Going to the Match was bought by the Professional Footballers' Association for almost �1.2m.

Number 117 Station Road is still surrounded by the industrial scenes which inspired some of Lowry's most distinctive paintings.

Metal plaque

And the attic studio where Lowry painted many of his famous landscapes still forms part of the house.

On the front of the house is a commemorative red metal plaque, which is listed as a place of interest in a tourist leaflet for visitors to this year's Commonwealth Games.

After leaving his home in 1948 - 10 years after the death of his mother - Lowry moved to Mottram in Tameside.

He died in hospital in Glossop, Derbyshire, in 1976.

If the house is not sold by 10 July, it will go to auction in London.