Property that's more English than the English themselves

THERE’S timber, and then further up the scale there’s lumber. Dromore Barn is a lumbering giant, and a roadside West Cork oddity.

Elizabethan or Tudor barns, a statement of affluence, never really made it to Ireland: what we got was stone and slate, and, more latterly, galvanised steel framing.

Instead, the Tudor touches here in the architectural firmament were generally confined to a bit of faux timber framing and a lattice of lead striping on window panes.

No such half measures here at this eccentric Bantry riverside site, a veritable labour of love and lumber — some 40 tonnes of sawn oak imported from Olde England — all done by hand by the redoubtable and remarkable handyman and carpenter John Mortimer.

This genial Englishman surfaced in these pages a few years ago when he bought, restored and eventually sold the stone Dromore Mill, a few miles from Bantry in one of West Cork’s more scenic settings.

Along the way, Mortimer carved up the mill’s nine acres along a tumbling section of the Dromore river, with its stunning fish pools and salmon steps, into two plots, and kept one back to build this valuable novelty barnstormer, with an as-yet undetermined future use.

Initially, Cork County Council planners would only allow an agricultural building on this site, but eventually permitted this timber and plaster structure destined for residential use.

Certainly, Mr Mortimer thought laterally, if not collaterally, and motorists passing by have something very different to look at.

He is selling up: at 1m-plus, the structurally complete magnum opus is all ready for an interior fit-out to a new owner’s requirements, such as exact room layout, placing of electrical and plumbing fixtures, etc.

Selling agent for the 90% complete project is Michael H Daniels & Co, who sold Dromore Mill a couple of years ago for the same vendor and who, coincidentally, are now based themselves in an old mill in Castletownroche in North Cork.

“It is a true ‘one-off’ property, I’m not aware of anything similar in Ireland,” says Mr Daniels of the faithful replica of an Elizabethan barn, albeit one with 27 windows inserted over its two main living levels and tall, sloping attic spaces.

It took two years, and more, to get to this stage, build on a stone plinth and a concreted pad, with hardwood pegged timber frame (to current insulation standards). Gables and rear are oak weatherboarding, while the front facade has a creamy white painted render framed in oak.

There’s 3,500 sq ft over the lower two levels, with the attic space excluded from this calculation and currently left open plan. Planned accommodation over the other two levels includes entrance hall, sitting room, kitchen, dining room, study, utility to ground floor, and three en suite bedrooms and a library on the first floor.

The property, fringed by a busy road to one side, and in complete contrast to the lively Dromore river on the other, has a detached garage and is almost certain to be bought by a buyer as a unique residence, and not for any profile commercial usage: estate agent Michael Daniels feels its eventual purchaser is as likely to come from overseas as from the locality/Irish market.

Drawings for the barn, modelled on a 400-year-old original, came from Canterbury, Kent, and the timber was also sourced, cut and planked in Kent, before being shipped over in two lorry loads, still kind of the norm for timber frame houses even today, albeit on a heavier scale.

Baltimore shipwright George Lowney rowed in to help with the build, which is characterised by huge pegged dowels than nails or screws. It progressed in fits and starts from its initial skeleton back around 2000.

There’s electricity to the site, water, a river with energy generating potential, and a group sewerage scheme.

Finishing out the build is likely to cost several hundred thousand euro more.

Landscaping is improving all the time, and the site has two ponds just waiting for ducks.

All across England, Tudor barns are highly prized for their conversion potential: Ireland doesn’t have that stock, yet it has Dromore Barn, and yes, they do build them like they used to do... but only if you are John Mortimer.