The Hedges has a country feel — despite its great suburban setting
But, the thing is, The Hedges is the real deal — it is the suburbs that are the recent pretenders and blow-ins.
This detached, two-storey Bishopstown house was the original local farmhouse, whose lands stretched down what is now the Melbourn Road in the city’s western reaches, now home to swathes of mid-1900s ‘modern’ homes.
While The Hedges has kept faith with its far older roots, though, it is far from a timepiece and has had regular upgrades over each of the past few decades, rising to 1,800 sq ft by dint of a two-storey extensions.
Now, its time has come around again, as a sale beckons with the resident family reared here all now in their 20s, and moving on.
Location is the junction with the Curraheen Road and the Melborn Road/estate, within a short walk of the CUH, schools, Wilton Shopping Centre, two Dunnes Stores, and a hop to the south city ring road.
Realigning the junction back in the 1980s meant the old hedges here had to be taken back, and replaced by a high wall. Since then, further planting has shot back up inside once more to restore privacy, mature screening, copious green softening. More recently, the owner put in raised beds, planters, etc., keeping faith with its horticultural past.
The Hedges was briefly on the market back in 1999, when most interest in it was as a development/commercial site, and while it still has a superb location for other uses, the most interest now is expected to be residential, and from traders-up.
Appointed selling agents are Ann O’Mahony and Johnny O’Flynn of Sherry FitzGerald, who seek offers around €580,000 for the well-presented five-bed detached family home, noting that there really isn’t anything else quite like it on the local market.
The Hedges is more or less place squarely at the centre of its quarter acre site, and has off-street parking behind (accessed from the Melbourn Road side) for at least three cars, and more parking spaces outside its walls.
Thanks to a rear extension back in the early 1990s, there’s now a bright, inviting large kitchen/dining space with a black gas-fired Rayburn as pride of place and doing the heating and cooking tasks, and this great 24’ by 14’ room has windows on three sides for garden views.
There’s double door access to an oak-floored lounge with original fireplace, off the dining space, while across the hall is a separate drawing room, with double ‘front-to-back’ aspect and period fireplace.
Overhead, of the five bedrooms, the main bedroom has a double aspect, as does a rear second bedroom, and the middle of the front three rooms has been made over right now to a super-cosy private study.
The main bathroom has a cast iron roll-top bath, and separate shower and there’s a ground floor guest WC off the side utility room.
For buyers needing to live in a handy Cork city location, but who also want something different, The Hedges might be right up their alley.
