Welcome home to Churchtown

THE cameras are coming: there’s a showhouse showdown in the immediate offing at the Earls Court scheme of new homes, in north Cork’s Churchtown.

Two interiors designers are doing battle for the hearts, minds, and wallets of aspiring buyers and viewers, thanks to the new series of the RTÉ programme, Showhouse. Later this month, they visit the Carraig Beag Developments’s scheme of 73 houses, which will also include a medical centre and creche.

The days of just building houses ad nauseum, with no facilities, are slowly grinding to a halt too.

Churchtown has been the focus of a (too rare) planned growth curve and is a small, welcoming community proud on its long history and facilities (Actor/ one-time hellraiser Oliver Reed was of the welcomed notables, and chose to be buried in Churchtown). It has a good range of services, pleasant architecture and is actively pursuing the hope of a sports centre, with a gym, pool and other facilities.

The local website www.churchtown.net goes back to when the local red Churchtown marble was formed 350 million years, and its history of habitation is clearly dated at least 4,000 years, so it certainly isn’t a place that sprung up overnight.

Earls Court is one of the later new homes arrivals, and its developers have previously built schemes like Tanyard Wood in Millstreet and Ard na Gleann, Lyre, Banteer, so they know the north Cork hinterland well.

According to joint selling agents Valerie Costelloe of Property Choice in Cork city, with Sherry FitzGerald Walsh in Charleville, buyers are coming from the wider north Cork community, as well as from the northern side of Cork city: “They can sell up in town and get a far larger new house for the same mortgage,” Ms Costelloe notes, for a trade-off of a 35-45-minute commute.

So, to prices: three-bed semis of 1,146 sq ft start from €242,000, larger 1,338 sq ft ones are from €256,000, and four-beds semis of 1,656 sq ft are €278,000.

There’s also a four-bed detached of 1,656 sq ft for €310,000: not too many other places can match that. Then, there’s an even bigger detached 1,749 sq ft home at €364,000, and all houses (they’re timber-framed) qualify for an enviable B rating in the coming BER energy-rating scheme.

Features include black pvc fascias, soffits and window frames, Stira stairs are fitted for attic access, heating is zoned, over three zones, and the heating boilers have condenser boilers with 82-90% energy efficiency, with energy efficient lighting.

Showhouses at the Earls Court open weekends are February 9 and 10; and 16 and 17.