Castle Road’s Bayswater Cottage has curves in all the right places

Castle Road Blackrock setting is the type of location to inspire lyrical splendours, as Tommy Barker discovered at curvaceous Bayswater.

Pictures: Dan Linehan

THE French word ‘Embonpoint’ is a perfect fit for Cork’s Bayswater Cottage, on the Castle Road in Blackrock.

Literally translated, it means ‘in good condition.’ But, in latter-day uses ‘embonpoint’ is taken to mean of generous, curvy girth, and often associated with a woman’s more-than-ample bosom.

As it comes to market in rude good health, the 200-year old lady Bayswater Cottage has the best of its many charms up on full, proud display, and that’s the pair of eye-catching rounded bow windows, gracing its front facade, complete with original curved glass in the timber sashes, divided by slender columns.

It’s one of the most engaging elevations along Castle Road, and that’s quite a boast, as one period home is prettier than the next, along this precious stretch of suburban Cork’s real estate. Or, as the case may be, un-real estate.

Castle Road runs from Blackrock Village to the eponymous Blackrock Castle, and while it has always had a golden location cachet, it is being freshly regilded now, with each and every residential resale.

Immediately to the left of Bayswater is Mahonville, which featured here back in 2014: since it sold, at a recorded €682,000 on the Price Register, Mahonville has been effectively rebuilt from the front wall back, with a very modern rear glass box extension next to a new, brick-faced bay window.

Mahonvile may have had as much, or even more, spent on its reconstruction as it cost to buy in ‘14, indicative of well-heeled demand for the location.

Further evidence? On Bayswater’s other flank, next door on the city end is the alluring Tenby Cottage, also a resale back in 2014, selling at €640,000.

Bayswater’s owners are here since 1991, moving in as a young family, and now – five children later and the last of the rearing almost over and the more senior ‘adults’ flown abroad – they are trading down, after decades of minding and polishing and appreciating its ample assets.

In a whirlwind of busy decades, and regular house updates, they reckon they are probably now the longest established residents on this stretch of the Castle Road, with all of the other five neighbouring homes in this riverside stretch having changed hands since their arrival 27 years ago.

All six are different, in varying sizes, with a mix of architectural embellishments, even ages; site sizes differ too, and not all have parking in front, as this has inside its curved sweep of entrance pillars with names plates, by an old copper beech tree.

Most in the row (but not all houses on Castle Road) have rear access, off Tenby Lane, and so Bayswater Cottage is doubly blessed: it faces north to the Castle Road and River Lee, while its sunnier, southerly-aspected disposition looks over a very long, walled garden, book-ended by an old lofted stone coach-house, as old possibly as venerable as the house itself is.

A previous owner of Tenby Cottage next door, up to 2014, was architect Peter Murphy, and he secured planning permission for conversion of the old coach houses behind Tenby and Bayswater for replacement by three-bed mews homes, independently accessed off Tenby Lane.

That mews planning permission runs until April 2019, should a new owner so wish to act on it.

Bayswater Cottage is a late summer/Bank Holiday offer with estate agent Timothy Sullivan, who sold Tenby Cottage next door four years ago. Once word spreads, he can expect a bit of a heavyweight scrum of activity through its elegant front door and half-circle canopy with sidelights and overlight.

He guides the surprisingly spacious (c 2,700 sq ft) dormer home of immense charm and originality at €790,000.

Thanks to its current owners’ ministrations, a buyer could simply opt to move in, paint or redecorate as they wish, and spend no more for a while. Or, of course, they could go with ‘grand’ plans, as some in the vicinity have done and are currently doing on other Castle Road abodes where post-renovations must put values of several well into the €1m-plus price league.

Bayswater is in some contrast to another near neighbour, Riverside, closer along the Castle Road to Blackrock Castle itself.

Riverside (a protected structure, and thus BER exempt) came to market in late June via Savills, guiding €695,000 and despite now needing upgrades, is already €100k over its guide, in spirited bidding after frenetic viewings, and was approaching €800,000 this week. So, Bayswater, it would appear, has a few ready-made suitors unwittingly in the wings.

The vendor says at 2,700 sq ft and on large gardens it is just too big for her current needs, and admitting to a love of art, design and decor, she feels she’d love another project, albeit on a smaller scale.

She recounts that it was one of the several original fireplaces (all here still) that clinched the decision to purchase, back in 1991, and with its ornate Victorian tiles, and all buffed up, that sale-swinging chimney-piece adorns the rear, main bedroom.

That sunny, south facing large back bedroom, has a tucked-away en suite bathroom, with a wall of wardrobes/storage; it has a quirky on-high odd-shaped old roof window for ventilation, and in a corner is a shower enclosure that looks like it came off the ‘beam me up Scotty’ deck of the Star Ship Enterprise. It possibly is, indeed all singing and all-dancing, as the owner’s in a city choir.

Serving the three other bedrooms is a main family bathroom, redone and retiled very recently as a wet room, with pressurised shower behind a part-glass screen, all very slick, and it replaces a hot-water devouring roll top bath that had been in situ prior, but was little used.

Ranged across the front, roofscape of Bayswater are three gabled dormer windows, one per bedroom, and all have recently had new efficient double glazed sliding sash windows installed.

A description of Bayswater in the Buildings of Ireland register describes them as attic rooms and ‘recent gabled dormers with finials,’ but they are likely to have been here in some shape or form for very many decades.

In its appraisal, Buildings of Ireland says of the bosomy front “the paired bows to the front elevations add to the elegance and character of this house..the almost idiosyncratic quality of the bows and projecting canopy over the front door contribute to the sense of the suburban retreat from the city. The retention of the sash windows adds further interest to the building.”

The well-endowed bows at Bayswater are reckoned to be a later addition to this building, and in fact appear very similar to those gracing Mosely Villa on the main Blackrock, which sold last year for €1.5 million after a huge refurbishment job, to Voxpro founders Dan and Linda Kiely, who have undertaken yet further work lately.

This Castle Road version is a symmetrically balanced, very deep house, cut through its middle by a long hall with original or at least very old encaustic floor tiles, with old, stripped pine doors left and right, to the twin and equally charming main, formal reception rooms (each nearly 20’ by 14’), each with its gracious bow, someceiling plasterwork, and fireplaces, cleaned years ago to bare glory after painted layers..

One room has a black marble fireplace, the other has a white marble one with stove insert, and this room is graced by a rather special chandelier. It was found, the owner recalls, in a skip outside the actress Joan Collins’ London home many years ago, rescued, repaired and rehung, but is a bit of a dose to keep clean, she says.

Behind is a slender, high ceilinged home study, with sash window, recalling the time when this would have been the back wall of Bayswater, but in more recent times a family room/dining room was added on one side, with direct garden/terrace access, and a TV/lounge sun room went on the other side, also with terrace access to this sun trap spot.

The kitchen, meanwhile, is tucked away, almost galley style off the dining/breakfast room which has a rough-plastered wall behind a second, wood-burning stove and a beamed ceiling.

Although it’s an effective and efficient space to cook and serve and stay connected (via an internal window too, as well as an open doorway), it’s probable that any new owners will, at the least, reconfigure this space and open it up all the more to the glorious and beckoning sight of the back garden.

The back of this period home has had external insulation added, and thanks to this, other insulation measures, double glazing out the back and some ‘renewable’ energy features like the wood burning stoves, Bayswater Cottage gets a surprisingly good D1 BER rating.

Surprisingly, too, Bayswater isn’t a protected structure, and it’s dated roughly to between 1780 and 1820, and family surnames associated with it (in no particular order) include Loane, Atkins, Moore, O’Sullivan, O’Regan and, the earliest on formal record is that of tea merchant Samuel Faris, in the 1880s, when the house was already many decades old.

The mature gardens, front and back are a modern asset too to this venerable home, with a draping of copper beech to the front, as a sort of horticultural calling card for the many strollers enjoying the property parade while promenading along the so-refined Castle Road.

To the back are apple trees and a sweet cooker apple specimen as a feature (early, premature windfalls this week due to the long, dry spell) and the other rear garden planting includes rhododendron, hydrangeas, berberis, camellias, a lantern tree, magnolia stellata, skimmia, phormiums, a Mexican orange/choisya and, of course, bay trees for Bayswater Cottage.

Bulwarking the almost micro-climate garden is the 25’ by 16’ former coach house, stone built and recently reroofed in galvanised steel after Storm Ophelia disobligingly lifted the old slate off its pate.

The outline gaps of where the beams for the hayloft were are evident still, and the space is great for storage, and holds some future promise of a mews conversion/replacement, thanks to its rear access on Tenby Lane.

It’s quite the private world back here, all overlooked by this property’s unusual asset, a roof terrace above the family TV/sun room, accessed via a window in the first floor landing, with secure steel rails on its perimeter.

There’s much to enjoy out back in this serene domain, and within with its considerable respect for architectural detailing too.

So it’s almost a surprise when leaving Bayswater Cottage by its front door to find that outside, right on its doorstep, is Castle Road. You’d nearly forget...except that’s what your are paying a premium for.

VERDICT: A Castle Road keeper.

Castle Road, Blackrock, Cork

€790,000

Size: 258 sq m (2.700 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 3

BER: D1