Hayfield touch in rural history for €595,000 Georgian-style Cork home

The fine heritage touches add class to a spacious modern family home

Clasach Goggins Hill Ballinhassig Savills

Ballinhassig, Cork
€595,000
Size	276 sq m (2,971 sq ft)
Bedrooms	5/6
Bathrooms	4
BER	B3

There's a very fine pitch pine staircase in this Georgian-style Cork home which shares its name with a Co Kerry landscape landmark, An Clasach. And, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think it dated the house back about, oh, 150 or 200 years.

But, the house was only built in 1999, so what’s up? Well, the stairs came from the old Hayfield House in Cork city, off College Road, the one-time family home of the Perrot and, later, Musgrave families, of SuperValu renown.

Hayfield Manor

The Musgraves sold the old Hayfield in 1995 on c three city acres to the Kerry-based Scally family of hoteliers, who opted to demolish the original house and build in its stead a new hotel. Enter the the highly regarded Hayfield Manor, a five star hideaway on walled-in grounds near UCC and which has accommodated presidents, movie stars, assorted celebrities and is a local favourite for family events and celebrations.

Little or nothing of the original Hayfield fetched up in the 1996-opened Manor, but not everything went to waste – such as the stairs at An Clasach.

This good-sized family home is on Goggin’s Hill above Ballinhassing, just ten minute drive west of the city suburbs, for sale now with agent Michael O’Donovan of Savills: he guides at €595,000, and had it under early offer already this week as soon as it launched.

A six-bay home with a period house appearance, it has other ‘old house’ touches and architectural salvage items, such as reclaimed and stripped pine doors and kitchen units, wood floors, that fantastic staircase, and a cast iron heating rad, yet the house gets a very distinguished B3 BER.

It’s adaptable, with a ground floor bedroom/home office next to a bathroom, with reception rooms at the two front corners, conservatory/sun room to the side and kitchen/diner at the rear, and five first floor bedrooms, two sharing a Jack-and-Jill style en suite shower room, all in c 2,900 sq ft.

Vendors are trading down, and An Clasach has a 500 sq ft floored attic, a steel storage shed, a 610 sq ft block-built garage with WC, and a hard surface tennis court.

VERDICT: A lot of house, and a slice of old Cork merchant family history, in a handily-situated west-of-city location.