1970s look is still hot in Abbey Road, Kilcrea
HERE’S only one thing that’s in any way Dickensian about this Co Cork country home, by Kilcrea Abbey — and that’s its name.
Called Gadshill, after the great writer Charles Dickens’ country home, Gads Hill, in Kent, this version is an architect-designed 1970s-build, recently upgraded, with attention paid to the insulation of roof and walls: as a result, it has scored a very impressive B3 BER, which is rare for a home of this vintage.
How the Dickens did that happen?
Prosaic answer: Walltherm cavity insulation in 1993, lots of new windows, and roof improvements in 2001, plus a wood-burning stove in the main living room....grate expectations, indeed.
While designed and built as a rural one-off — and, design-wise, ‘twas at the cutting edge of its day, with its marginally sloping flat roof — it’s got the sort of look that today’s architects still feel is fresh and even a bit edgy, decades later.
Gadshill is new to market with estate agent, Trish Stokes, of Lisney, who prices the detached, 2,050 sq ft, four-bed home at €395,000.
She says the setting, on Abbey Road, is splendid, a locational link that goes back many centuries, to Kilcrea Abbey friary, which was built in the 1500s and the burial place of Art Ó Laoghaire.
In fact, the Lisney sales material cleverly acquired the right to use an atmospheric photograph of dawn at Kilcrea, which featured last month on this newspaper’s back pages.
Gadhill is being sold because the family that owns it has an emptier nest, and it is a ten-minute spin from Ballincollig: thanks to huge employment strides, this area west of the city is currently a property hot-spot.
Lisney’s Trish Stokes says that many, or any, further planning grants out here are very unlikely.
Kilcrea’s Gadshill is on grounds of 0.7 of an acre, with the garage giving further scope to the 2,050 sq ft, main two-storey house, which has a long, rear-projecting wing, which houses a very bright main living room, with triple aspect, and the best of the garden views.
: Sure friar thing.
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