Ashleam has charm and history in abundance

This 200-year-old home is in great shape, with lovingly tended gardens. Tommy Barker finds it has been beautifully enhanced

IT will be hard to find a home with quite as much charm, character, integrity and sheer usability as Ashleam — a period, c 200-year-old family home on gardens every bit as good as the house itself. It’s quite a perfectly balanced package.

The current owners of the covetable home and lovingly tended grounds have been here since 1996 (they have a copy still of the Irish Examiner editorial on its proposed sale back then) and they reckon it has sold, on average, every two decades in the past century or so.