Tide Cottage a throwback to the past

IT is so picture-postcard perfect you wouldn't be too surprised to see a fisherman outside the door smoking a pipe (or, separately, smoking fish) while mending his nets or tarring a boat.

Tide Cottage is a thatched throw-back to the past, the very personification of an island fisherman's humble home, and reckoned to be 200-300 years old.

Except Tide Cottage is on the mainland, at cul-de-sac Scotchman's Point almost by the water's edge below the Point Road in Crosshaven, with views rounding the indentations of Cork harbour and to Currabinny woods and its chic terraced homes across the water.

It is one of a very few thatched homes around Cork harbour east Cork is where the thatch starts in earnest.

Nor is the market valuation on this recently re-thatched cottage humble: it is guided at €425,000 by estate agent Roy Dennehy in Carrigaline, who clearly puts a value on the waterside setting, views, rarity of thatch in the vicinity and on its cuteness.

It is on a site said to be almost a quarter of an acre (so will other bidders have plans for a grander residence here?) backing on to the Point Road above where there's a second pedestrian entrance.

The cottage character is authentic, yet comfortable starting with a half-door entrance and an old painted high-backed settle by the door.

This appropriate half measure door yields way to a 13' by 13' kitchen/living room, with hefty thick stone firebreast and old wood lintels.

The room has a tile floor, ceramic Belfast sink, and off the room are two slender 11' by 5'6" bedrooms and a bathroom with a slate floor and a handily bent copper pipe used to hold the shower curtain, plus bath.

Heating is electric, and solid fuel/open fireplace so pass the hand cut turf, and get that smoke curling from the chimney.