Naul’s well that ends well
UNTIL very recently, Westown House formed an intriguing spectacle on the landscape near Naul, in north Co Dublin. A seven-bay mansion reportedly built in the early 18th century, it passed to the Land Commission in 1920 and thereafter, typically enough, fell into ruin. It featured in Tarquin Blake’s Abandoned Mansions of Ireland, its windowless gaze fixed hopelessly on the brambled remnants of its demesne.
But in 2015, Fingal County Council granted planning permission to its new owners to restore the house and grounds — a massive and heroic undertaking that is well under way.
Those who prefer a house that needs nothing done with it may be drawn instead to Woodville, about two kilometres from Westown House and in the same townland of Westown.
A new owner won’t have the need to improve this detached dormer bungalow. It’s 3,208 sq ft and oriented north-south, so that the living rooms get the best of the daylight.
The main living room is an openplan kitchen and family room with a wood-burning stove and French doors to the garden. Off the kitchen is the dining room where there are also patio doors. Separately there’s both a study and a sitting room with another stove and doors to a deck. The ground floor also has a garage and utility room.
There are two bedrooms downstairs, both en suite, and a third upstairs, where there’s also a bathroom and a skylit attic room used as a fourth bedroom.
Woodville has a pleasant demesne of its own, consisting of some five-anda-half acres with lawns and a stand of mature trees. The grounds also include a block-built workshop and a hot tub.
Naul village is two kilometres away, and it’s about 20 minutes’ drive from here to Dublin airport.
Woodville is for sale for €720,000 with Sherry FitzGerald Swords
(01) 890 0944.