Trading up: Rochestown, Cork; €590,000

The address title, Kensington, was aspirational back in the day, when homes were built in the Cork suburb of Rochestown, for the upwardly mobile in Upper and Lower Kensington.

They were big houses back then, and they are still big in most family’s books today, impressing with space aplenty, some 40 years on.

Now, a good example of the type, Zetland in Upper Kensington, is getting steady viewing traffic with selling agent Timothy Sullivan, who guides the 2,500 sq ft home at €590,000.

It’s up by Coach Hill and the top of Clarkes Hill, well within the mature, low density development and facing a green.

There’s a sort of architectural sweep to the asymmetric roof lines like a ski slope, but there’s no concealing that fact these are big homes, and here Zetland has two of its five bedrooms en suite — a good spec indeed for the era.

More than a match for the bedrooms tally is the living space, with a large, double-aspect and L-shaped sitting/dining room, with marble fireplace, there’s a lounge with bay window and fireplace with gas insert, a study/TV room, good kitchen/dining space, utility plus guest WC.

The house appears well maintained, and is bright, on colourfully planted and shrubbed grounds.

VERDICT: One of the parks that gave Rochestown its cachet.