€525,000 plus for Victorian showpiece

EU enlargement is in force just a week, but a strip of Cork city recalls an earlier time and a different act of union - the days of the British Empire.

Victoria Road is an urban strip where many houses still carry in their names memories of British rule - and Balmoral, a house on this mini-Royal Mile, continues the Empire tradition.

This house dating to 1898, was one of three built by local merchant Robert Pulvertaft for his daughters. This Victoria Road home is a good representative of the Victorian era, and quite a showpiece of the genre. From here, it is a 10-minute walk to the city centre, and the house is close to the river and the Marina.

Robert Pulvertaft's daughter and her husband, the Rev Canon Watts, were the initial occupants of the house. In turn, it was owned by the Kilgrew family, the well-known Cork retailers whose name was on every child's lips - and who sold everything from prams to train sets.

In 1992, the Kilgrew family sold Balmoral, which was then bought by its current owners, who had architectural expertise in the family. That knowledge and expertise has paid dividends. The five-bedroomed house has been sensitively renovated. The timber sash windows have been replaced, for example - evidence of the current owners' determination to maintain the house's character.

Estate agents Peter O'Flynn and Johnny O'Flynn of Colliers Jackson Stops suggest a guide for Balmoral of €525,000-plus.

This is about the price of a five-bed Victorian semi-detached house on the Cross Douglas Road, reinforcing the trend that inner-suburban period homes are in real demand just now. (Balmoral's conjoined neighbour is also for sale, in need of full-restoration, priced in the mid €300,000s by Conor P Flynn Associates.)

Balmoral is at the city (Albert Road) end, and so doesn't have views of the Kennedy Park green area that its neighbours a hundred yards to the east enjoy. In compensation, though, it has rear access from an avenue behind to a small south-facing back garden.

The front garden has off-street parking, while a side-access connects both gardens.

The three-storey, semi-detached house has five bedrooms, a first-floor drawing room, and just about every room has its original cast-iron fireplace. The main rooms have slate and marble fireplaces.

The accommodation includes hall with tiled floor and stained-glass door, living room with bay window, interconnecting with sliding double doors to the dining room, breakfast room (with wood-burning stove) and kitchen with modern units.

There's a nursery beside the main return-level bedrooms which could be made into an en-suite separate bathroom and WC, first-floor bedroom, a 17ft by 11ft drawing room to the front of the house and three more attic-level bedrooms.

Colliers Jackson Stops are the agents.