Tale of two contrasting properties oozing history

THE fate of No 1 Sharman Crawford Street is probably going to be kinder than the fate surrounding the package that was Fairm Bawn, two contrasting Cork city properties oozing history.

Smack bang in the heart of Cork city, No 1 Sharman Crawford Street hit the market at the start of November. By the end of last week, it was sold, and signed for, after intense interest and heavy viewings brought it to a swift private auction. Four bidders were narrowed down to just two in the final hunt, and they pushed it up from the €335,000 guide to sell for €385,000.

The end-of-terrace house was bought as a private city home, and will be renovated, according to estate agent Dennis Guerin of Frank V Murphy & Co.

The ivy-clad house, in an ecclesiastical heartland near St FinBarre’s Cathedral and with charming river Lee and weir views, has a surprising 1,870 sq ft of space, needing upgrading, and small back yard.

Meanwhile, also ivy-clad for years, and surrounded by mature, nay massively overgrown gardens and almost hidden from the public road, was Fairm Bawn, a fascinating piece of Togher’s suburban history.

It featured in these pages back in mid-2006, when it came up for sale, guiding €700,000 and eventually selling for about €880,000.

Detailed in a romantic ‘English Style,’ and essentially two cottages conjoined in the 1920s and 1930s, with a corner overhang. The house, on a half acre, was pre-dated by a long series of old roadside stone and mud-built cottages, reputedly up to 300 years of age, and with thatch under the corrugated tin roof. There all gone, now, with only the basic house, shorn on its site, and with its mid-1900s leaded windows boarded up.

No sign of any planning application for the half site yet.

The Fairm Bawn estate was part of the old Ronayne Estate, later passing into Sarsfield hands. In the 1800s it belonged to the Phair family, and most recently was owned by the Harris family from the UK, who used it for holidays and then rented it out. Annabelle Harris sold land around it in the late 1980s and 1990s to the Bradley Brothers, who developed new housing, but she held on to the house and shed on half an acre.

Last year’s Irish Examiner sale editorial noted: “heading into a new chapter, Fairm Bawn will be a fascinating sale. The site alone has its own value, but the mix of buildings cannot be replicated. Fortune favours the brave.” No replicating now.