This Bishopstown home for €575,000 is built to last

Brampton in Wilton Gardens has undergone significant renovation and extension.

Wilton Avenue, Cork
€575,000
Size	213 sq m (2,300 sq ft)
Bedrooms	5-6
Bathrooms	3
BER	C3

A major extension job was done on a 1960-built four-bed semi-d back in the early 2000s, and by a major firm, Bowen Construction, a company more used to civil works, tunnels, roads, bridges, and piers, than ‘mere’ domestic add-ons.

So, anyone now looking to buy a large family home in the very heart of Cork’s Wilton/Bishopstown suburbs need look no further than Brampton for a rock-solid house: “Whoever comes to live will be here for decades,” predicts estate agent Darragh Taaffe of Keane Mahony Smith.

He lists the five/six-bed extended home of 2,300 sq ft, or 213 sq m, at €575,000 — high enough, price-wise, for a semi-d. But it’s now a semi-d and a half, in effect.

Not only has this corner property at the top of Wilton Avenue had a two-storey extension put on to the side, it’s also had sort of an apron or ‘skirt’ put around its front, side and back which adds even further to the overall floor area, select rooms sizes and also lets in a lot of extra light, due to roof lights and glass panels.

Location wise, it’s at the highest point of Wilton Avenue, just off the main Wilton/Bishopstown thoroughfare with a Lidl, an Aldi, and the Wilton Shopping Centre within a few minutes’ walk, and just off the Avenue’s boundary to the east and north is the sprawling CUH/CMUH medical campus, home to thousands of jobs.

It’s also within a slightly longer walk to UCC, and the MTU, with schools close to hand also and, for outdoor sports, Bishopstown GAA Club is within a few hundred metres also.

That club’s pitches are quite possibly where an older and lively family moving into Brampton may go to kick a ball around on as, due to the extended house here taking up so much of its corner site with Bishopscourt Lawn, there’s little or no grass or lawn.

There’s a small front lawn and a gravel drive for off-street parking, while the right-hand side of the site has been screened off with a gate to the front, and planted, tall boundary screening: it gets great morning sun, notes KMS’s Mr Taaffe, while the front gets all-day sun, and the enclosed rear patio garden, which is mostly paved with some mature planting, gets evening light, he adds.

The departing owners did their major extension work just over 20 years ago, around 2001, and they weren’t afraid to move walls to open it up, either.

It’s got a central hall now, with the original staircase splitting on the return level left and right, right to two additional rooms plus a bathroom, and left to the original four bedrooms and main bathroom.

There’s a further WC at ground level (but no en suite bedrooms) to the back, next to a laundry/utility room with garden access and the entire left-hand side of the original floor plan is a front-to-back reception room, about 25’ by 13’, with fireplace to the front and the rear section has double doors to the rear patio.

There’s also a study/sitting room/TV room at the back, and over on the added-on side, there’s now the kitchen and dining room, with granite tops to the long runs of units, plus there’s side patio garden access by the dining end, and there’s stained glass window to the front of the house.

Flooring is mostly hardwood, polished or varnished back when the house was upgraded in 2001, and so likely to need some refinishing, with some carpeted rooms and tiling too.

Preparing for first viewings just yesterday and getting ready to show to trade-up and family buyers, KMS agent Darragh Taaffe said Brampton was “truly, a light-filled space, with large areas for mingling and dining, and smaller spaces to relax, work, and study”.

VERDICT: Good work
already done, so changes now are minor, updates to decor etc to suit a new family of occupants, with services on the doorstep, laid down over the last 60 years, and ever-evolving.