Pretty thatched house, beside a church, is 400 years old

Co Wexford/€350,000: A thatched house, dating from around 1600, sits in its own grounds seven miles from Wexford town.

While the tourist board still sells Ireland as a land of thatched cottages, the reality is somewhat different. This home presents the opportunity to live the dream and own one of Ireland's oldest houses, which has lived through the Reformation, the 1798 Rebellion and the 1845 Famine.

The Sanctuary is being sold through Kehoe and Associates who are guiding €350,000.

The house, which was rethatched a few years ago, is approached via a tree-lined avenue and is secluded. The only visible neighbour is a church, which the house once belonged to: this also used to be thatched.

The Sanctuary retains some original features, plus some later additions, including windows which were installed in 1810. But the house has benefited from a lack of ill-considered "modernisation". New owners would probably want to update the decor, although it is currently liveable in. Modern comforts include central heating.

On the ground floor there is a livingroom with a beamed ceiling, open fireplace and timber floor, a reading room and office are situated beside this.

The diningroom also has beamed ceilings and a timber floor plus an oil-fired Stanley stove. The kitchen and utility are off this.

Upstairs there are three bedrooms, two of which are linked through a doorway.

The grounds are just under an acre in size and incorporate a tree-lined avenue, lawns, mature trees and shrubs.

There's also a vegetable garden and hard areas to the front and rear. Most of the grounds are in front of the house, giving it privacy from the road.

The Sanctuary is the main residence of the current owners but planning permission was granted in 1999 for two self-catering holiday homes to be built on the site.

The Sanctuary is beside the village of Killinick, which has pubs, restaurants, shops and a filling station. Rosslare is five miles away.