A river runs through it
Property description terms like “exceptional location” have been devalued by overuse and misuse, but here’s a place that defies a brochure writer to match the location’s splendour.
This riverside bungalow is in an area of special conservation (SAC,) on a sloping bank tumbling south and west to the River Blackwater beneath.
Just along the river’s bank is a steep wooded cliff or escarpment; a geological oddity. To the back is a Norman castle, Monanimy Castle, restored in the 1980s and lived in since.
The restorer of the castle who re-built from tumble-down walls is a German national, and it is less than a co-incidence that the occupants of the bungalow beneath it are also German.
“I was working in London at the time and my colleague sitting next to me had bought this castle and said the bungalow beside him was up for sale,” recalls vendor Johannes Wegscheider who lives at Killavullen, near Mallow, with his wife Gisela.
“We visited, and immediately fell in love with it and scraped our pennies together to buy it. We used it for years for holidays, coming over three or four times a year from London, and then moved over full-time,” says the retired aeronautical engineer. “I worked harder at it than I had to in my job,” Johannes laughs.
The couple’s handiwork has now resulted in about half a mile of walks, with a high route to the cliffs and a low route by the water’s edge, through woodland and parkland.
The house is on grounds of 5.2 acres, and there’s a small private island down by the cliffs, which typical of such ‘inch land’ floods in winter. There’s an air of adventure playground about this spot: rock diving beckons, swimming, assault course building, canoeing, and, for the more sedate, fishing.
The Blackwater has long had a reputation for its salmon, but the Wegscheiders also found it useful for eel fishing. Selling agent now is Michael O’Donovan of Sherry FitzGerald O’Donovan, who guides it at €400,000-plus, seemingly modest for a place with 600 metres of private river bank and such a unique setting.
Selling agent is Michael O’Donovan of Sherry FitzGerald O’Donovan, who guides it at €400,000-plus, seemingly modest for a place with 600 metres of private river bank and such a unique setting. The house has a handy 1,600 sq ft of space, three bedrooms with two en suites, there’s a fine large 600 sq ft living room with dramatic south and west facing river and Nagle mountain views, kitchen with Victorian fireplace and lots of out-buildings.
Location is half a mile along the river from Killavullen, beside the rarely-used Monanimy cemetery, with Mallow about six miles away and Cork city 35 minutes drive or with the option of a rail commuter link as well to the city.
