Southern comfort by the riverside

Tommy Barker visits a home with an age-old air of grace and gentility.

IT is semi-detached and dates to the 1830s, but little else was done by halves at 36 Sunday's Well Road in Cork.

Few Irish cities can offer a residential setting like this, south-facing, on what is virtually an escarpment, with a half acre of terraced gardens and lawns running down to a river, all within a short walk (or paddle) of a city centre.

Sunday's Well is blessed with this and more, and No 36 is in the midst of all this bounty, with views straight across the River Lee to UCC's main Quadrangle and the superb new Glucksman Gallery, where you can hardly make out the wood cladding from the campus trees.

Directly across the river from the property's garden boundary is the new Sunday's Well tennis club pavilion, with Cork Museum's new extension and Fitzgerald Park next door: heck, for real gentility and Mardyke sporting and playing, there's even cricket at the Mardyke, and UCC's sports complex with swimming pool.

Adventurous children can have a world of adventure without ever straying far: there's space at the bottom for a small soccer pitch or tennis court (the last owner raised the level to avoid flooding), the tiered gardens above are a climbing challenge if you stray off the path, and older children can canoe, row or fish, and picnic in the park as some neighbours do with jetties at the garden's end.

Set behind a high wall for privacy (parking is on-street) and with a courtyard vestibule entrance, No 36 makes the most of its views and there's a beguiling vista from the front door in.

Internally, the house is rich in architectural detailing and well-preserved plasterwork, and its visible charms (once you stop staring out of the windows, that is) are spread on four levels.

Like many houses in this location, the quality fades a bit at bedroom level, with three bedrooms at the uppermost level and there's a fourth bedroom at entry level in fact, a very distinctive barrel-ceilinged room at the roadside of the house could make for a unique master suite if you can forego the views.

The good rooms are the interlinked south-facing sitting room and drawing room, with fine marble fireplace, ornate ceilings and deep bay windows with PVC double glazing: these are the show-off rooms for when the guests are in the house, but there's also scope for something dramatic and contemporary at the lower ground level by linking the existing kitchen to a dining room. Both of these rooms open onto a wide terrace which beckons for al fresco dining.

Sunday's Well homes like these, with the gardens down to the river, only rarely leave family hands, and old stalwarts will still remember houses not by name but by their previous family occupants. This house has been owned by the Terry family for 33 years, and the mathematician George Boole ('father' of modern day computing) lived here for a while in the mid-1800s, says his biographer Des McHale, whose research predates residents' memories.

New owners are now sought by estate agent Brian Olden of Lisney, who has revised the price guide from €800,000 to around €900,000.

As can be expected of a house of its age, it will need further spending to match the expectations of buyers at this level, and new owners may choose to do this before moving in.