Cobh Harbour vistas bring prospects to light
OW could you not love the sea, when you live in a setting like this, in Cobh, with the pleasurable panoply of Cork harbour at your feet?
Cobh — and Queenstown back in the day — was always about the harbour, its ebbs and flows, its ferries and fishing, its shipping, emigration, and defence of the British Empire, which brought forts, prisons, wealth, and employment.
Now, the same harbour’s refinding its mojo as a tourism and boating paradise too.
Cobh in previous centuries was home to the 1720-founded Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC), now tethered in Crosshaven, and this Summer is set to get a new 80 berth marina, joining the slow-growing necklace of facilities for sailors dotted around Cork harbour. Work on the first 35 marina berths is due to start in coming weeks.
And, Cobh’s marina is going to be set directly in view of this period semi-detached home called Misleigh, which straddles a south-facing site and gardens beneath Cobh’s Lake Road, and above the High Road.
“Misleigh, for me, is like the house that time forgot,” enthuses Cobh-based estate agent Johanna Murphy as she brings this quite special c1850s house to the open market guiding at €350,000, with two main floors of accommodation sandwiched between a basement level, with basic, cluttered rooms, and an attic level, with just replastered and cleaned-out rooms.
It’s been a family home for many, many decades, to the Roche family, two generations of them, in fact, and its last occupant was indeed an old salt, someone who loved the sea and sailing.
He was the proud owner of a classic yacht, one of about a dozen-only Cork Harbour One Designs, built in 1896 for racing around Cork harbour.
Described as thoroughbreds of the sea, the 29-feet One Designs were built in Carriglaoe’s grid iron and in Passage West, with one also built in Baltimore, all to a design by Fife.
Seven of the venerable One Designs remain, and several have been restored at considerable cost, among them one called Elsie (pictured, here, in summer sailing finery), owned in previous decades by the man who last lived in Misleigh.
They’re a glorious boat to see in full, gaff-rigged flight, and are a thrilling boat to sail, enthuses Ms Murphy: herhusband George Radley owns one called Querida, and who has several in care and storage at his Great Island boatyard.
Johanna Murphy believes whoever comes to buy Misleigh will be enthralled by the vista from its main rooms and grounds, as well as its easy access to the town of Cobh, and the train station, and the cross river ferry.
With a guide of €350,000, there’s a lot of property at Misleigh for the money, but it now needs a fairly thorough renovation job on top of its purchase price to make it ship-shape once more.
The evidence from its basement rooms, home to carpentry workshops and store rooms, is of a house where maintenance was done on a need-to-do basis, rather than as a matter of course or out of any wish to add creature comforts.
Upshot? It needs pretty much everything done, from damp-proofing and drylining, to heating, wiring, bathrooms, kitchens and windows conserved, etc.
The upside of all that is that the condition is still very original, so you won’t be ripping out half-done jobs, and its original features - including servants bells in the basement - are still in situ.
Many of the original sash windows are in place, with shutters, and some of those which were replaced with pvc are still in storage in the basement and may be reinstated after repairs.
There’s some plain ceiling plasterwork, original doors and fireplaces, and the original floors and it all feels quite sound, just in need of more weatherproofing.
The house will sort of suggest what needs to be done, and in what order, and thanks to the swathes of large Victorian homes in and around Cobh, there’s a skills base locally too among the building fraternity.
Accommodation sees one bay-windowed reception room with doors to a rear kitchen and scullery, across the hall is a larger reception room with an internal arch divide, and a small room is hived off the back in the manner of a wet bar, with very old ceramic sink.
There’s good stairs access to a basement, with four rooms, albeit very basic ones (one was the original kitchen) off a hall, and the attic has three replastered rooms, with low-ceilinged landing: one of these rooms housed a giant train set until very recently.
The grounds around Misleigh are tiered, and you enter from the elevated Lake Road with shared access to its ‘other half’ immediately dividing, and the avenue angles around a downhill slope to the house.
Most of the gardens now are behind, as another house was built discretely some years ago by family members in the lower/front garden, but handily there’s stepped access still kept to the High Road below.
The rear gardens could easily accommodate a large shed (for dinghy storage?) and have a glasshouse as well as old veg beds, and there’s even the leftovers of a den-like old garden room up steps, faced in green corrugated iron, in a corner under the Lake Road.
A slice of Cobh history. Bring boat and budget.
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