Cut a former sawmill into your own shape

WHAT goes around comes around, and soon the sound of saws and hammers will be heard once more at this spot on the Convamore Estate in Co Cork’s Ballyhooley.

The former sawmill building on the River Blackwater estate is for sale, and adventurous house hunters are expected to want to get their saw-teeth into it as a project on a Grand Designs theme. It could make a spectacular one-off, or even a couple of linked properties.

The original Convamore House, was built in the early 1800s for the Earl of Listowel, who had extensive lands here, but burned down in 1921. The construction date of this workmanlike stone building is put at 1838, according to estate agent Michael H Daniels, who guides this market arrival at about €350,000.

He acted for a British-based buyer a couple of months ago in the €500,000-plus purchase of Tourin Barn, further down the Blackwater near Lismore, a 4,000 sq ft property on 2.5 acres.

Now, he has instructions to sell Convamore estate sawmill building.

Stone built and tall (18’ toe eaves,) it has about 1,700 sq ft of space, but there is scope for a home of perhaps 3,400 sq ft, subject to planners’ agreement on a conversion and design.

The attractive property, with gable wall arched entrance and potential for innovative glazing additions and break-outs, is part of a walled yard, on a site of three-quarters of an acre, with a shared access drive (there’s another residential property nearby) through quite impressive stone entrance pillars along the road, about two kilometres from Ballyhooley village.

The property is about a half an hour from Cork city, is close to Fermoy, with Mallow is a bit further to the west, and the river and rural demeanour, in prime sporting land with the Nagle Mountains nearby, promises a pastoral life.

Now, where’s that saw?