Victorian beauty in a class of its own

Tommy Barker is buttered up by a period home that is warm and welcoming.

ALAN PARKER came to Cork to shoot his Limerick slum scenes for the movie Angela's Ashes but he also picked up on some of Cork's more gentrified homes on his visit to the substitute city.

Among those homes featured was the exterior of 1 Ardskeagh Villas, on hilly Gardiner's Hill near St Luke's Cross in Cork; it was seen in all its glories in the film as a callow young lad came delivering coal to the door.

The current owner came to the door here in 1998 when this five-bed, three-storey house also featured quite heavily in these property pages. It was then priced at £120-£130,000 but is now set to sail past its €450,000-plus price guide with agent Dennis Guerin of Frank V Murphy and Co.

The vendors have unearthed a Census form from 1911, which shows a butter-merchant family called Twomey in residence at 1 Ardskeagh and what's notable are the two domestic servants also listed as occupants, a cook and a nanny.

Apart from the small (but growing) number of families with nannies, the place is likely to be bought as a family home, or could also suit a professional or couple the living space over three floors is adaptable, with instant visual appeal.

Essentially, 1 Ardskeagh Villas is a five-bed home over three levels with all of its period touches in evidence and in smart decorative order from top to bottom.

It also shows the input of several recent improving owners: the house only had electricity installed in 1989, depending on gas for lighting.

Gas is now reserved for the central and water heating, cranking up the volume to fill the big cast-iron bath in the sanctuary main bathroom. This bath is a place to wallow in, tapered towards the feet and splayed for shoulder comfort with a wide pitch-pine timber lip surround, ideal for balancing books, candles, wine, oils and indulgent balms on. If you haven't time for a long soak, there's a double-sized power shower so you can just wash and go. (The loo seat and large wash-hand basin in this funkily coloured bathroom also come with generous timber surrounds, and the room even has a cast iron fireplace.)

Retained period touches include original sash windows, working shutters in the living room, cornice work in the two linked ground floor reception rooms, hall and main bedroom, original hall flooring tiles, polished old pine floors, and fireplaces in all five bedrooms and in the two reception rooms.

Double pine doors link the two reception rooms, with the front of the house facing east, and the raised low-maintenance and walled-in back garden (laid out by designer Brian Cross) getting evening sun.

Out the back of the house, the previous owners knocked four small rooms into one large kitchen/ breakfast room, stretching back 24' from the rear of the house, with some old brick wall features, overhead Velux and there's a large sweep of pine units and gas hob.

The main bedroom stretches across the front of the house, with tall sash windows, and there's another bedroom/study behind overlooking the tranquil rear garden.

The top floor has three good-sized attic rooms, with high dormer windows.

Location is within a brisk 10-minute walk of the city centre, and an uphill climb on the way back out of town, ideal for a good cardiovascular workout.

There are low-maintenance gardens front and rear, and the semi-detached Victorian beauty is approached via a small set of steps from Gardiner's Hill, with an excellent national school just up the road and controlled disc parking and residents' permits for car-owning residents.