Cast off in front of this Georgian lodge that’s in need of restoration

PREPARE to be enchanted by Cregg Olympry, an early Georgian lodge dwelling on the River Blackwater in Cork, with dancer and impresario Michael Flatley a nearby river neighbour at Castle Hyde.

But, in eyeing up this beguiling looking place, prepare also to face into a full programme of renovation and restoration.

Up for sale by public auction on August 20, the larger than it looks property near Fermoy in Co Cork has nearly 900 metres of river frontage to the famous angling river, fishing rights, 38 acres of land and up to seven bedrooms under its old slate roof.

Price guide as it hits the market with an unseasonal auction date (lawyers love their weeks off in August) is €600,000, with joint agents CB Hamilton Osborne King in Cork city and Dick Barry in Fermoy.

The house, likely to have been built as a fishing lodge, faces across the Blackwater to Cregg Castle, and is about a mile upriver of the town of Fermoy, or about two miles from the town centre by road.

It has much of its original character and architectural features intact, and although it is currently lived in, portions of the house have not been used for several decades.

Aspiring purchasers will be advised to visit with architect or surveyors in tow, to perhaps introduce a note of financial and professional realism, to temper understandable bidding enthusiasm for what is a quite substantial property package needing sensitive restoration.

Parts of Cregg Olympry date to the 1700s, and the main section with its curved bays was built c1810. The accommodation is spread over single storey and part-two storey sections, with a series of basement stores.

Rooms include a hall with cast iron and oak fireplace, morning room with French doors to the gardens, a drawing room with bay windows and dining room, all with fireplaces, kitchen with solid fuel Aga, two pantries one described as a butler's pantry, the other a maid's pantry scullery, and two ground floor bedrooms, both with fireplaces.

The upper level has five more bedrooms, three with fireplaces, main bathroom and store room.

In addition to the main residence, there is a series of old outbuildings, most of the land is in pasture and the house is at the end of a tree-lined avenue. Cork city is about a 30-minute commute, with the airport also a similar distance off via the Jack Lynch tunnel.