Regal elegance at Clonmel's €265,000 Queen Street upgrade
PERIOD grandeur, for the €265,000 guide price you might pay for a modest three-bed semi, is on offer at No 23 Queen Street in Clonmel.
Built in the 1830s, it’s one of a terrace of three townhouses built for the Bagwell family — wealthy and influential landowners whose main residence was Marfield House, a Palladian-style mansion near the town, and whose members included Tory MP William Bagwell.
In the last twelve months the Queen Street house has been bought and decorated by an owner with an interest in antiques and interior design and a passion for renovation. He previously renovated and sold a Victorian terraced property in Tramore and is now hoping to find a French villa in need of TLC.
Decorating to make it look the way he thought it ought to, the owner used damask wallpaper, gilded mirrors, heavy curtains, antique and period style furniture and Persian style rugs.
Vacant for over a year, it had been neglected and the garden full of rubbish, although the house still had a great many original features and had gas heating. “The Bagwell family owned it right up until the 1980s and this meant that not a huge amount had been changed,’’ he reveals.
One of the most interesting features to survive the last 170 years was a brick oven with a Georgian clock jack, a wind up device to spit-roast chickens which has been put back in working order.
“All the floors and the staircases had to be stripped and restored — I took 30 layers of paint from the six-panel Georgian front door and painted it royal blue,’’ says the owner who brought in carpenters to repair the original sash windows on the front of the house and fit double-glazed ones at the rear.
Before starting work on the interior design, he paid a visit to Swiss Cottage in Cahir, a restored ornamental 19th century property . “ I took inspiration from this and used Tulle de Jouy wallpaper of regency design in some of the rooms.’’
In this 11 ft high room with cornicing and high shuttered window, the restored Kilkenny marble fireplace is the centre of attention. Decorated in a red and grey colour scheme to match the panelling on the fireplace, the room has an antique stove, an ornate gilt mirror, an ottoman table and a gold antique games table.
The back drawing room, which has amongst a myriad of decorative items an art deco velvet sofa and a large elaborate gilded mirror, is equally decorative.
“We already had a collection of antique furniture but also shopped for new ones in antique shops and online,’’ says the owner, adding that some of the final pieces were sourced online during lockdown.
With an original Kilkenny and Connemara marble fireplace as well as an impressively large four-poster mahogany bed, the front bedroom on the first floor looks the epitome of grandeur. The bathroom at this level has a modern suite but has been given a period look with antique and vintage mirrors and floral curtains.
The long walled garden has much changed since last summer when it was filled with rubbish and overgrown with briars.
“We put in a new lawn and reinstated the beautiful old rockery beds,’’ says the owner who added a gazebo on the patio, put in pond and planted rose bushes and foxgloves and nasturtiums and other cottage garden flowers.
“ It’s a peaceful oasis in the centre of the town and has views of both of Clonmel’s churches and the Tipperary hills,’’ says the owner.
Selling agents Power & Walsh say this is a very fine Regency property which has been lovingly restored. The picture of restored Georgian elegance.
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