Rectory living across two counties

CO WATERFORD for €390,000 and CO WICKLOW for €375,000Two rectories are on the market, one which retains many original features and the other with separate properties attached, writes EMMA CULLINAN

WITH ITS pale stone exterior and interior, Guilcagh Rectory in Co Waterford has warmth and solidity.

The restored four-bedroom house – which is for sale through O’Shea O’Toole at € 390,000 – is by the same architect who built the Church of Ireland church across the road.

The rectory, at Ballycahane, Portlaw, Co Waterford, was built in 1849 to a design by prolific local architect William Tinsley – who created other churches and many Quaker buildings too, along with great-houses such as the Gothic-style castellated Tullamain Castle, in 1838, and the Georgian-style Lakefield house.

He left Ireland for America (with his wife and nine children) soon after this rectory was finished – driven out by the famine – and had a successful career in Cincinnati. He is credited as one of the Irish men who helped build America.

While this rectory has been restored since then it retains many original features including its stone walls and sills. On the ground floor there is a sitting room with oak floor and stone fireplace, with a solid fuel stove.

There are also stoves in the fireplaces – set into the thick walls – in the office and study.

The kitchen has embraced its time and country setting with oak units, teak worktop, Belfast sink and Rangemaster cooker all set beneath a vaulted ceiling. The antique cast-iron bath, in the bathroom at this level, also speaks of time and place.

Upstairs, reached via an ecclesiastical-style, pitched-roof landing with exposed beams, there are four bedrooms, entered through Gothic-arched doors, one of which has a shower en suite. There’s also a separate shower room on this floor.

The rectory comes with 0.75 acres of land with a lawn, shrubs and trees to the front. Outbuildings include a garage, boiler house and fuel shed. Waterford city is 14km from here.

The Rectory at Annamoe, Co Wicklow

House on 0.8 acres with separate properties

Agent: Douglas Newman Good

SOME OF the thorough refurbishment work done in the Rectory at Annamoe, Co Wicklow, has been undone, with once dream fireplaces now ripped out of walls by thieves and the Aga torn from the kitchen.

Even boilers, bathroom fittings and copper piping were taken, but much of the decoration remains intact, including the paintwork and coving.

The house will be auctioned on June 14th on the instructions of a receiver, with an AMV of €375,000 being stated by Douglas Newman Good, somewhat below the €1.6 million price when it was on the market in late 2010.

The large 1840s house, measuring 232sq m (2,500sq ft), sits on 0.8 acres of land and comes with a separate two-bedroom property, of 86sq m (930sq ft), and an attached cottage, of 36sq m (385sq ft), now comprising two reception rooms and a bathroom, so there is earning potential in holiday lets.

The main house has well-proportioned rooms with large windows, including two bays to the front on the ground floor, and pretty, tall, slender arched windows upstairs.

The lounge (which still has a fireplace) and drawing room are to either side of the grand front hall, both with bay windows. The lounge flows into the dining room behind it, while the kitchen is across the hall from there, and behind the drawing room. This is in a country style, with its off-white painted units, including a tongue-and-groove detailed island unit, granite worktops and pale tiled floor, but there is that gap where the Aga used to stand proud. Off the kitchen is a utility and shower room in an annex.

All four bedrooms upstairs have bathroom facilities. The bedrooms are wrapped around the stairwell and landing.

Three of them have an en suite tucked into their inner corners and the fourth sits beside the main bathroom.

Guilcagh Rectory, Portlaw, Co Waterford

Restored four-bedroom house on 0.75 acres

Agent: O'Shea O'Toole