House by river is a spacious surprise

An end of terrace house for sale on Inchicore Road, just a stone's throw from the Royal Hospital and Kilmainham Jail, is a surprise in many ways.

Number 53/55 Inchicore Road, Dublin 8, has a modest, grey-fronted appearance which gives no clue to its three-storey interior, two-storey annexe, and long, south facing garden sloping to a mosaic covered wall, with the Camac river beyond.

The property, which is being sold by private treaty, has a guide of £185,000. The agents are Elliott & FitzGerald.

One of a row of 16 houses built in the 1830s for workers in the nearby mill, the house has been refurbished over the past four years. The result is a home with three/four bedrooms, two reception rooms and many original period features.

The front door opens off the street and into a small entrance hall with stencilled, timber flooring. From here a short flight of steps leads to a return with a shower-room/lavatory, then on and up to the main bedroom on the top floor.

Another flight of steps leads down from the hall to the garden level, kitchen/ breakfast-room and another bedroom. To the right, as you come in at street level, is a sitting-room and off it, in what is the annexe, a bedroom/ study. The sitting-room has a cast-iron fireplace, of the same period as the house, with a hearth of Valentia slate. The timber floor has been painted white and there are built-in bookshelves on three walls. A window allows good views of the mosaic walls surrounding the garden. The adjoining study/bedroom has another window overlooking the garden.

The shower room on the upstairs return has a quarry-tiled floor, deep wood-framed window and hand-made tiles over the sink. The main bedroom, eyrie-like on the top floor, has a mosaic tile-work inset around the original fire-grate.

A couple of steps lead to a room now in use as a child's bedroom but which has been plumbed for easy conversion to an en suite. This room has a wooden floor and one glass-brick wall.

Downstairs, at garden level, the L-shaped breakfast-room/ kitchen has a baked tile floor. A hardwood counter/worktop separates the dining and kitchen areas. Over the kitchen sink there is a wood frame window and the built-in units are of wood. A multi-paned glazed double door opens on to the patio and a single door opens into a bedroom filled with dappled light from windows overlooking the garden. Outside, the limestone on the rear facade is similar to that used in Kilmainham Jail.

The good-sized, brick-built patio has steps to a side entrance gate and a brick-built barbecue. The sloping garden has raspberry bushes and several healthily climbing clematis as well as apple trees, herbs, strawberries and more. Large double gates at the end of the garden lead to a pedestrian way and a stretch of land to the river which will soon become the property of the terrace's householders and has already been planted with trees and shrubs in anticipation. Heating is gas fired.