Old roses and room for the Steinway

Co Galway: €950,000A manageable country house built for minor gentry in 1835 is set in beautifully landscaped gardens.

Originally designed for downsizing dowagers, the Georgian elegance and manageable proportions of a dower house makes it the ideal choice for a country house in the 21st century.

Dowagers tended to enjoy their gardens, so flower beds luxuriant with old roses and lavender usually come with the property.

On the Galway side of the Shannon River and 2.5 miles from Banagher, Kilnaborris House was built in 1835 as a dower house for the Butler Moore family, minor gentry who farmed at nearby Shannon Grove.

Masons used turf-fired bricks, handmade from impervious yellow clay on the banks of the Royal Canal, an unknown technique until the canal was forged through the bog.

Looking like a single-storey lodge to the front yet two-storey to the rear, the house is set into the side of the Esker Riada glacial ridge and surrounded by beautifully landscaped grounds of about 10 acres, including stands of old broadleaf trees.

Savills HOK is quoting a surprisingly modest €950,000 by private treaty for the over 288sq m (3,100sq ft) house and grounds, which have been restored from top to bottom by current owner Hope O'Connell.

Over the past 16 years, she has rewired, plumbed, re-roofed, fitted a new bespoke kitchen and updated the bathrooms, carefully restoring a wonderful 6ft cast-iron bath which she will miss.

The Old Mould Company in Dublin made replicas of the ornate cornicing and plasterwork.

Original felled beech floors were in "decrepit" condition and had to be replaced, so underfloor heating was installed before the new planks were laid. A conservatory now links the main house to a former coach-house and forge, converted to an atmospheric guest wing.

The total number of bedrooms is four, with the option of turning a family sittingroom into a fifth bedroom.

The best room in the house has to be the rose drawingroom, running the length of the house, with tall Georgian windows and enough space for a Steinway boudoir piano.

There is also a study and family sittingroom and a conservatory linking the house with the coach-house.

The country kitchen was custom-made by a firm in Ballinasloe and leads out to an unheated lobby with pantry and larder.

Spanning the second floor is the main bedroom and its en suite bathroom. Two further double rooms and a shower room are at the top of the house, under the eaves.

The converted coach-house and forge are off a courtyard behind the house. Original vaulted doors have been retained, flooding the large open-plan living space with natural light.

The old forge hearth is in working order and there is a sunken sittingroom and mezzanine bedroom.

Other buildings include an old stone well and hay barn. Gardens close to the house are lovingly tended, with glorious apricot roses bought at the Chelsea Flower Show cutting a dash.

Along the drive and bounding the pasture, original copper and green beech, holm oak and weeping ash have been augmented by hazel, viburnum, mountain ash, oak and stands of silver birch.