‘Powerful’ ground
IGOT to see a residential farm at Ballyclough, Kilworth in Co Cork just before the weather broke last week. The property includes 66ac of fine elevated land, a five-bedroom traditional farmhouse, a traditional yard and a two-bedroom lodge.
The place is for sale by private treaty with a guide price of €900,000 or €12,000/ ac for the land.
It was a lovely spring day as I made my way through the level country of east Limerick until I passed through Ballylanders and the Galtees came into view. The ring road took me around Mitchelstown and back on to the old Cork road.
A right-hand turn at the Gloccamorra Inn and another 4km brings me to the farm located about 10km from Fermoy and Mitchelstown.
A short, tree-lined avenue leads straight to the house, a substantial two-storey residence with a two-storey extension to the rear.
The accommodation includes five bedrooms, one of which is located downstairs with an ensuite.
The ground-floor accommodation includes a fine country kitchen, a shower room and WC, a sun porch and a series of reception rooms with open fireplaces all with great character.
All in all, it is a fine dwelling, but needs refurbishment. To the front of the property is a two-bedroom lodge or bungalow with its own entrance.
This building is structurally sound but in need of modernisation.
Granary
Out of doors and just to the rear of the house is a mixture of older and more modern buildings.
An old stone granary or stable building complete with a bell is a lovely piece of architecture and has great potential as a studio, office space or for residential use.
It could also be converted into tourist accommodation.
Other farmyard buildings include a five-column round-roof barn with wooden columns, a three -olumn shed with lean-to and cubicles, a series of older stone sheds and byres and a disused milking parlour complete with pit, dairy and a collecting yard.
The land is laid out in six elevated fields located behind and to the side of the house with plenty of road frontage and some lovely stands of trees.
I walked the ground with Michael O Donovan of selling agents Sherry FitzGerald O’Donovan, Fermoy. It is firm underfoot and obviously free draining.
Michael describes it as a ‘warm farm’, dry and south facing that could suit equestrian buyers.
There is no doubt it is powerful ground with little or no waste.
The place is on the private treaty market and can be bought as an entire or in two lots with one made up of the house, yard and bungalow on 9ac and the other consisting of 57ac.
The holding has plenty of potential as a modest residential farm, a hobby farm or an add-on to and existing enterprise.