Residential

Georgian in Kells is ready for a makeover

This former magistrate’s house on 23 acres, dating from 1774, has retained its lovely period features – but it needs work

Tim O'Brien's face
Tim O'Brien
Thu Jun 26 2014 - 01:00

Lakefield House, near Kells in Co Meath, is a large, former magistrate’s house dating from 1774. With east and west wings, and in need of refurbishment, it comes to the market on 23 acres asking €550,000 through Raymond Potterton.

The property features a classic early Georgian main house of two storeys over basement, with a three-bay facade and double doors below a fanlight. Slightly set back from the main house are two wings, one to the east which housed dairies, sculleries, a harness room and servants quarters, and to the west, and possibly a later addition, is a coachman’s house once used as a ballroom and latterly as a granny flat.

The house and its wings form three sides of a cobbled courtyard, the fourth side of which is comprised of a line of stables underneath a hay loft. The courtyard is completely enclosed with access to the avenue through a lovely deep arch over cobbled ground. Heavy wooden doors guard the archway which in turn is covered by a “gun hole” across the yard in the main house.

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At hall level the main house retains attractive early Georgian features. These include a bifurcated staircase facing the front doors and rising to the first floor beneath a glass atrium which lets light flood in, even on winter days.

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The doorways to the main receptions are between three and four feet deep. The reception rooms have original cornices, fireplaces and shutters on the windows. This part of the house is thought to be the oldest.

One-time resident, local magistrate RH Battersby, writing in about 1839, remarked “my grandfather built a house on Lakefield in 1774”.

The basement of the main house currently houses a farmhouse kitchen, diningroom, pantries and utility rooms. On the first floor there are four main bedrooms with additional bedrooms and bathrooms in the wings. Outside, the grounds are laid out in terraced gardens with a former “front avenue” leading to the front of the main house which is no longer in use but the route is still discernable and has some fine specimen oak and pine trees.