Elegant Georgian grace

YOU can take “trading down” as a relative term — especially when you consider that the vendors of Lissarda House in Cork traded down to this quite large Georgian house only in the mid-1990s.

The Sherrard family bought Lissarda House, on the Cork side of Macroom, when they sold their family home, Maryborough House, in suburban Douglas around 1995 it is now an 80-bed hotel on 24 idyllic acres and one of the most sought-after wedding venues in the south thanks to its 300-year-old gardens.

Maryborough House was sold at the time for over £1 million a Cork price record at the time and millions more went into its development and extension by its purchaser Dan O'Sullivan who saw his investment turn to gold.