Escape the madness to west Wicklow haven for €785k

A house built around the 1870s on the edge of the Humewood Castle estate in Kiltegan, Co Wicklow, has had many uses over the years: it was once a two-room schoolhouse, a presbytery and earlier, a constabulary station.

For the past 27 years it has been a family home – but now with three children at university – the owners are moving on.

The 213sq m (2,293sq ft) four bed with a separate 42sq m (452sq ft) one-bed apartment is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald seeking €785,000.

This is a house for someone who wants to get away from it all, set on 1 hectare (2.8 acres) of gardens deep in west Wicklow: Feddan sits in the middle of the gardens surrounded by oaks, elms, poplars as well as apple and pear trees. At one side, the garden slopes down past a patio to a stream near the boundary of the garden; in woodland towards the back of the garden is a “priest’s walk” dating from the days when it was a presbytery.

Refurbished by its owners and simply decorated, Feddan has country chic, with a wisteria-covered front, some exposed stone or brick walls and original red-and-black tiles in the front hall. On the right of the front hall is the drawingroom and on the left, the dining room, both with black cast-iron open fireplaces. A door from the dining room opens into the kitchen,which along with the hall is floored in black-and-white linoleum.

At the back of the house, behind the drawing room, is a very attractive family room which the owners converted from a stable. With a sloping ceiling, a tall Gothic arched window and a wall of exposed stone facing a wall of windows, its glazed doors open onto an enclosed patio. The hall winds back past a good-sized utility room into the kitchen.

Upstairs there are four bedrooms, two decent doubles and two small doubles. The main bedroom has an en suite and a wall of wardrobes.

The separate one-bed apartment across a small courtyard is currently operated as an Airbnb: in the past the owners have used it as a home office (the house has broadband) but it could have a number of uses – a surgery, artist’s studio or au pair or teenager’s flat. Accommodation here includes a downstairs living room/kitchen with a shower room off it and a double bedroom upstairs. It has a separate entrance from the road.

Although quiet, Feddan is not lonely: there's a house next door and across the road, one of Humewood Castle's original gate lodges. This is one of a number of estate buildings given to tenants before Mimi Weygand, a descendant of the Hume family, sold it to German businesswoman Renata Coleman in 1992. Humewood, a Gothic-fantasy mansion on 172 hectares (427 acres), is now owned by Irish American media billionaire John C Malone.

Feddan House is 9km from Baltinglass and the N81, around 72km from Dublin city centre and roughly 45 minutes’ drive from the M50.