Stately Mullingar mansion for £2m

Meares Court was built in 1760 and has nine bedrooms and four reception rooms. The estate features walled gardens, stone-cut houses (below left), a gate lodge and an ornamental pond

Meares Court, Rathconrath, 10 miles from Mullingar in the greenest of Westmeath pasturelands, is one of few houses of its kind in the country. Not many of its age and style are as preserved, lived in and compactly contained in a rolling parkland setting.

Built in 1760, and with origins going back a further 120 years, its Georgian grace is preserved in a careful refurbishment. On l90 acres of parkland, it has a gate lodge, courtyard surrounded by stone-cut houses, walled gardens, ornamental pond and mature and specimen trees. There are nine bedrooms and

four reception rooms. Agents Jackson Stops McCabe are selling it by private treaty with a guide price of £2 million (#2.54m).

Meares Court has been well cared for over the years. Its original features, such as elaborate plasterwork, deep shuttered windows, timber floors and 14 remarkably varied original fireplaces, are intact. Each fireplace was lit every day for 200 years until central heating was installed; this helped preserve the house.

In l642, Cromwell gave the land, with a tower house, to an officer of his forces, one Louis Meares. The Meares family built the present house 120 years later and generations of the family lived there until the late l930s. Since then, it has changed hands three times.

The present owners bought Meares Court in l975 and have refurbished the garden level and second floor.

From the lime-lined avenue to the architecturally impressive facade, Meares Court makes an immediate impression. Three stories over garden level, it has five bay windows across the front, with a Venetian window above the doorway, which itself has a pediment on two columns.

The reception hall leads to two sets of stairs; the back stairs were used by servants and access every floor in the house, the wider stairs at the front serve the two floors with the main living accommodation. The drawing room has windows to the front and side with views of the walled garden. Behind it is a study.

The main landing has a pair of arches and four bedrooms. The fireplaces in each have different coloured tiled insets, timber floors and fine views from every window. The top floor is reached via the back staircase and has bedrooms which have lower ceilings.

One, eyrie-like and with a vaulted ceiling, is over the front entrance door and was once the nursery/school room for the family's children. The garden level, again reached only by the back stairs, now has a family room.

The Poggenpohl-fitted kitchen has a scarlet oil-fired Aga, wood-panelled ceiling and Amtico flooring. There is a scullery off this and a cold room. On this level, too, are a bedroom and family bathroom.

Outside, a two-bedroom stone house in the courtyard verges on the lake. Another two-bedroom house is in the inner courtyard. The gate lodge, also with two bedrooms, was restored recently. There is a large area of protected woodland and several acres of land in permanent pasture.