Gothic style, great gardens in converted house

Co Waterford: €975,000 An eight-bedroom country house built in teh 1860s as a priest's residence has striking stained glass windows and award-winning gardens. Kate McMorrow reports.

The Co Waterford coastal village of Stradbally is the setting for Carrigahilla House, an eight-bedroom country house with a gardener's cottage and 4.54 acres of award-winning ornamental gardens. Six of the bedrooms are en suite.

Property Partners Spratt is quoting €975,000 by private treaty sale for this substantial 592 sq m (6,300 sq ft) house, which has some very distinctive architectural features. Built in the 1850s as the residence of parish priest Father Casey, ownership passed to the Sisters of Mercy, who added on the chapel which is now a games room.

Carrigahilla House operated as a guest house and restaurant in the 1990s and its current resident is a Paris-based businessman. Striking features include Gothic-style stained glass windows, pitch pine floors and decorative ceiling plasterwork. The gardens are truly beautiful and the adjacent five/six room cottage - structurally sound but in need of an upgrade - has 85 sq m (900 sq ft) of living space.

To the front off the tiled entrance hall is a fully fitted study/office, with a shelved library across the hall. Double doors access the drawingroom, with its Kilkenny marble fireplace and American oak floor.

The most wonderful room in the house is a fine original timber conservatory, which faces the front entrance at the far end of the hallway. Off to the left, the church is now a large function and games room which can accommodate 70 people.

The typical country kitchen has a double oil-fired Aga, terracotta floor tiles and traditional-look units, with a utility off. A formal diningroom next to the kitchen will seat 24.

Six of the eight bedrooms have en suite bathrooms in quirky positions, some up a few steps, others down a step or two. There is also a family bathroom and two further bedrooms.

Featured in several glossy magazines, the gardens are a delight, divided into set pieces like gardens of old. Among them is a rose garden, herb garden, orchard, woodland area, lawns and four terraces. Stradbally village has won the national Tidy Towns award on two occasions and was a gold medal winner in the European Entente Floriale in 2002.