Spacious Dublin 4 semi with large gardens

Donnybrook/€2.5m: On a road on which some houses are grand, number 45 Eglinton Road, Donnybrook, Dublin 4 is relatively modest.

One of a pair of double-bow window homes built by Whelan in 1938, it has been in the same family since 1952. With modernisation kept to a minimum the original layout is little changed and features like high ceilings, doors, picture rails, timber floors, stair encasing and cornicing are all intact.

The semi-detached house has six bedrooms, two reception rooms, kitchen and breakfastroom. The floor area is 187sq m (2,002sq ft) and Lennox Estates, with an AMV of €2.5 million, is putting it to auction on July 13th. With a nearby Edwardian house (AMV: €3.6 million) and a larger house (AMV: €4.5 million) on the road for sale, the owners of number 45 say theirs is the cheapest house for sale on Eglinton Road.

Large and lushly planted, the gardens are redolent of an era when land this close to the city was readily available. The rear garden has a curving lawn of 108ft. The front garden has a driveway for several cars.

The drawing and dining rooms have sliding doors between and the style and light advantages of the front bow window and rear French doors. The drawingroom has a turf-burning stove in the fireplace.

The rear, galley-style kitchen has an Aga, a range of recent, oak fittings and utility room off. There is a quarry tiled floor in the breakfastroom and an old-style wall press.

Upstairs, the largest of the five, first floor bedrooms benefits from the second bow window. Used as an office/study, it is completely shelved and book-lined. Two of the other bedrooms are to the front, two to the rear. The family bathroom is on this floor.