Georgian gem in the sunny southeast

Refurbished to Country Life standards by its English owners, Ravenswood, on 25 acres near Bunclody, is for sale at €2.2 million, writes MICHAEL PARSONS.

CO WEXFORD this week is, for a change, living up to its appellation contrôléedesignation as "the sunny south-east". On days like this who needs Cannes or Deauville when there's Curracloe and Duncannon?

The Blackstairs Mountains are ablaze with purple and gold; a sparkling Irish Sea is lapping the coastline’s golden beaches; and the Model County is pulsating in Mediterranean heat like a lush Langeudoc. It isn’t always so, of course, but no Irish county gets more sunshine. One of its more attractive towns is Bunclody, on the Carlow border, where Colliers Jackson-Stops is selling Ravenswood, on 25 acres, for €2.2 million.

The 604sq m (6,500sq ft), five-bedroom Georgian house is situated about 1.5 miles outside the town on the N80 behind electronic gates mounted on handsome granite pillars.

A flight of Carlow-granite steps leads to a primrose hall door framed by climbing pink and white roses. There are elegant, well-lit and spacious reception rooms off either side of the hall. At the rear of the ground floor is a study – ideal for a writer or use as a home office – and a diningroom decorated in stunning blue and white patterned wallpaper with a monkey motif which is rather Raj.

For afternoon tea there’s a lovely slated patio overlooking a delightful “cake-stand” fountain.

The house is in immaculate condition – there isn’t a stray Labrador hair in sight – having been beautifully refurbished by its horsey-set English owners who are reluctantly downsizing.

A potential purchaser should really consider buying the entire contents because the furniture and pictures are impeccably right. Though they probably won’t include the photographs of beaming British queens pressing the flesh. The two storey-over basement house has been fitted with a lift and two of the bedrooms are in a ground floor annexe.

A vast main bedroom upstairs is large enough for Henry VIII and all six wives and has separate “his ‘n’ her’s” (sorry “sir’s and madam’s”) bathrooms and dressingrooms in the best traditions of the gentry. The owners, who inherited a house with just one bathroom, have installed five spanking extra.

The basement (unlike in many Irish Georgian country houses) has been lavishly restored and has a gym (with sauna), a wine cellar, TV room, laundry, pantry, boot room and a cream kitchen where you’d quite expect to see Nigella whipping up jugged hare for the polo team.

The courtyard has lovely cut-stone stables with a self-contained staff or guest apartment overhead. This building was formerly the recording studio of a previous owner, the 1970s Waterford-born pop icon, Gilbert O'Sullivan. The five acres of grounds and gardens are manicured to Chelsea-standard perfection with Country Lifeherbaceous borders, riotously colourful rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, oriental poppies, and a buttercup-filled lawn with a natural pond.

There’s an all-weather surface tennis court and a sheltered lawn which would be perfect for a pool.

Another five acres is devoted to a belt of mature woodland which surrounds and protects the house. The remaining 15 acres consist of four watered and railed paddocks – all in permanent pasture interspersed with attractive, fenced stands of trees.

Dublin Airport is 70 miles; there's a commuter train service to Connolly Station from Enniscorthy (13 miles away) and, if the good weather doesn't last and you need to escape to la belle France, then Rosslare Harbour is approximately a 40-minute drive. There is excellent hunting locally with the Wexford and Carlow Hunts and a polo club has recently opened in Bunclody. Nearby golf courses include the swanky new Bunclody Golf Fishing Club. Viewing strictly by appointment with the agency where Marcus Magnier is handling enquiries.