Maureen McLeod owns a large, 200-year-old house in a picturesque corner of the Dordogne – the sort of property that British expatriates once rushed to buy. Two years after putting it on the market at €435,000, however, she is still there.

“It’s a beautiful area and a beautiful house and I had someone here looking at it just three weeks ago,” said Mrs McLeod, from Aberdeen. “But because of the British property market and the exchange rate, they didn’t want to go through with the deal.”

Mrs McLeod’s experience is an unwanted novelty for residents of the département of southwest France known as Dordogneshire. The stream of British buyers who sent house prices spiralling upwards has turned into a trickle, prompting some to suggest that Britain’s love affair with the Dordogne may be at an end.

“I used to do 70 per cent of my business with the British – that’s down to 20 per cent at most,” said Alexandra Bonoron, an estate agent in Sarlat.

Vincent Barnérias-Desplas, a local solicitor, said that the end of l’invasion britannique had put the brakes on the market. “I’ve been doing this job for 15 years and it’s the first time that I’ve seen sellers accepting less than they wanted. Prices are coming down by €10,000 here and €20,000 there.”

Mrs Bonoron believes that the fall marks a turning point in Britons’ enthusiasm for the Dordogne, where 25,000 have settled over the past four decades. Many have renovated crumbling cottages and ruined farms with a view to selling them on at a handsome profit. But Mrs Bonoron said that they had driven prices to unrealistic levels and that the bubble had burst. British buyers were looking elsewhere – at cheaper parts of France or at eastern Europe – and the French would replace them only if prices fell.

“The British were infatuated with our region at one time. You had ten customers for every property and they would almost fight among themselves to get it. But that wave is finished. Prices here are 30 per cent above market value and sellers need to accept that.”

She said that 25 estate agents had sprung up in Sarlat to meet demand. “Three have shut recently and two are in receivership.”However, other estate agents said that the slowdown was simply an effect of the sub-prime crisis. Charles Gilloley, who has an agency in Le Bugue, said: “Things have been a bit slow in the past three months but I’m not worried yet – although I might be if it carries on.”

He said that buyers were unable to sell their homes in Britain and had been hit by sterling’s 10 per cent fall against the euro. “They may be holding off, but I don’t think they no longer want to live in this part of France.”

Gordon Hall, a Briton who restores and sells properties in Dordogne, agreed, saying that house prices in rural France would rise, albeit at a slower rate. “It won’t be like it was seven or eight years ago, but there will still be steady growth.”

Mrs McLeod, who put her five-bedroom house in Verteillac on the market when her children grew up, said: “It’s lovely here, I’m in no rush.”