Off the beaten track elegance in Offaly
Georgian residence on 62ac guided at €530,000
SHINRONE is a quiet place on the Offaly side of the Tipperary border, but the village has played host to many a music legend.
The place is home to a massive parish hall built by Fr Frank Bergin, a very enterprising priest back in the 1980s.
To pay for the construction bills and upkeep of the building, along with funding the renovation of the Church and building a new school the priest linked up with Roscrea music promoter, Tom Stapleton.
Together they brought the likes of Arlo Guthrie, The Waterboys, Nanci Griffith, Don McLean, Meatloaf and Billy Connolly to the new parish hall.
I was in Shinrone last week to walk a 62ac residential tillage and grass farm with a period house and the remnants of a traditional farmyard. It comes to auction under the gavel of John Ryan of Birr with a guide price of €530,000.
Woodbrook House is about 2km from Shinrone on the Dunkerrin Road and about 10km from the N7 at Dunkerrin and 5km from the Barack Obama Plaza on the M7.
The house is approached by an old avenue that winds its way through the front fields and crosses the Little Brosna River over a quaint stone bridge.
A three storey Georgian building in need of complete refurbishment, the residence has loads of character and plenty of potential.
While the site around the house is overgrown the original elegance is everywhere to be seen. The accommodation includes an entrance hall, three reception rooms, an old kitchen with an Aga located in an extension to the rear while over the kitchen is a bedroom.
There are two bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor while a narrow stairway leads to the third floor, home to four bedrooms.
The residence hasn’t been lived in for many years and will take substantial investment to bring it back to the glory it certainly would have enjoyed in former times.
Out of doors there is a series of old sheds and a lovely arched entrance to the original courtyard that contains the remains of cut-stone out offices. To one side is a relatively modern four-column haybarn.
The land is a mixture of slightly elevated tillage ground under stubble and lower grazing ground that needs attention. There is plenty of road frontage and lots of existing and potential access points.
Just over 30ac of the ground is in tillage with the other 30ac in grazing and rough grazing. The tillage land is in good order and is obviously productive ground while the grassland tends to be lower.
However, there is good drainage potential into the Little Brosna that bisects the property.
A 7ac portion of elevated stubble ground across the road from the main farm has about 100m of road frontage and with the proper permission could have planning potential.
Elevated
There is a further 120m of road frontage adjacent to the main entrance, while an 11.5ac portion has an elevated section with road frontage on to a side road.
The farm will be offered in a variety of lots with the first lot made up of the house on 20.7ac of tillage and pasture with road frontage. This is guided at €210,000. The second lot is adjacent to the first and is also in tillage and grazing with road frontage. Extending to 21.3ac this has a guide of €180,000.
The third lot is a combination of the first two consisting of the house and yard on 42ac and guided at €400,000.
The fourth lot is made up of 7.6ac of tillage across the road from the main farm and guided at €65,000, while the fifth lot made up of 11.5ac of pastureland in need of attention is guided at €70,000 to €75,000. The entire will be offered with a guide of €530,000.
John Ryan is confident of local interest in the lots or the entire when the farm comes to auction at Dooly’s Hotel, Birr at 2.30pm on Thursday, March 22.