Classic period residence

Dromina House is set in Woodstown, linked in the past Jackie Kennedy and John Profumo. Tommy Barker says spacious home is in good decorative order.

WATERFORD’S Woodstown has seen the rich, the famous, the infamous and the media-fixated come and go — and has some of the county’s finest period residences to attract them with.

The coastal-set area around Woodstown had brief flirtations with fame in 1967s, when, for example, the late Jackie Kennedy accompanied by her children Caroline and John, stayed in the nearby Woodstown House after the death of John F Kennedy, when she also opened the John F Kennedy Arboretum in New Ross.

And, the Woodstown area had previously hit headlines when British secretary for war in Harold Macmillan’s government, John Profumo, took refuge there (he had a brother, a major, living at Woodstown) for several weeks after news of his affair with the young model Christine Keeler emerged, with links feared to Soviet spies via Ms Keeler, who was also friendly with Mandy Rice Davies. Profumo spent several weeks untroubled, and largely unrecognised, at Woodstown.

Tamer times now, and this summer one of Woodstown’s small set of fine Georgian homes, Dromina House, comes for sale with a price tag nicely shy of €1m.

Dromina was in its hey-day on 600 acres, with its original indenture drawn up on velum in 1701, but now is offered on a mere 6.5 acres. Selling agent Des Purcell in Waterford city (eight miles away) seeks offers around €925,000, describing the house as “outstanding.”

Dunmore East is four miles along the coast, and Dromina House (dating to the mid-1700s) faces the renowned beach at Woodstown, where Jackie Kennedy had been photographed horse-riding during her Irish holiday.

Dromina House has a seven-bay front, is two-storey with about 5,000 sq ft, six bedrooms and three reception rooms, was refurbished in 1985, and still is in very good decorative and structural condition throughout, adds Mr Purcell. Room sizes are gracious, several of the finer have a dual aspect and flooring includes mahogany parquet; it’s well plumbed with a range of en suites and other bathrooms, and has an attic level with rooflights, with oil-fired heating.

There’s a tree-lined gravel driveway, a paddock in front of the house, old stone out-houses around a walled courtyard with old flagstones. Buildings here have recently been reroofed with corrugated steel and with high level glazing, so there’s a huge storage capacity. There’s also a glasshouse-like building with clear plastic roofs in the near enclosed courtyard, which has a central water feature.

VERDICT: One of Woodstown’s clutch of classics.