€550k Bishopstown home right up the avenue of families starting out on learning curves

Cork city's western suburb has schools and colleges as well as shops galore on the doorstep for lifelong living and learning

Centre of learning: Cork's Bishopstown has schools and MTU right on the doorstep

Bishopstown, Cork City
€550,000
Size	125 sq m (1,350 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	2
BER	D2

IT hardly gets any more “Bishopstown” family living than at No 7 Allendale Avenue — the 1960-built house will top many a home-hunter’s shopping list.

Do the math: 7 Allendale Avenue is guided at €550,000 by estate agent Timothy Sullivan

The detached four-bed home is real box ticker: set in the heart of the south west Cork City suburb, effectively in a cul de sac with the only passing traffic being to local Scoil Spioraid Naoimh girls’ and boys’ national schools, with a gated entrance for junior classes only and teacher parking.

Smallies can be out the door at No 7 five minutes before the teacher calls the classes to order at the side-by-side schools, with over 600 pupils between them. Then, when they get a bit older, they can still be within a walk of Coláiste an Spioraid Naoimh, a substantial-sized boys secondary school, built in 1964 as the suburb began to mushroom with substantial new housing.

Rear view of  7 Allendale Avenue

Relatively nearby, on Model Farm Road, the all-girls secondary school Mount Mercy opened a year later, in 1965, while the co-ed Bishopstown Community School followed in 1979. The Regional Technical College (now Munster Technological University) came along in 1974, and now caters for up to 20,000 students and employs 1,500 staff.

MTU is a short walk from Allendale Avenue along Rossa Avenue, while the older stalwart, University College Cork, is a longer walk, cycle or bus ride. So, pretty much all education avenues, with easy commute options, are open to families buying into this Bishopstown niche location.

Other location selling points? The Cork University Hospital medical campus, one of the city’s largest employers, is on the city side of Bishopstown, while other major employment bases are at the Model Farm Road, and Ballincollig.

Ave: Garden at No 7 Allendale

It’s quite the self-contained community, in fact. For shopping, there is the just expanded Dunnes Stores at Bishopstown Shopping Centre at the start of the N71/Bandon Road roundabout/Ballincollig bypass, as well as the rebuilding and expansion of the 1970s Dunnes on the Curraheen Road.

Then there is Aldi and Lidl across from each other on the Wilton Road, near Wilton Shopping Centre; in the other direction, all the retail amenities in Ballincollig.

Estate agent Timothy Sullivan guides the 125 sq m (1,335 sq ft), near original condition No 7 Allendale Avenue at €550,000, and he’s selling for the next generation of a family who’ve been here for many decades.

Hall with parquet floor

Apart from its decent size, it has an attached garage (almost 3m wide and 5m deep), prime for annexation as an extra room, home office, play room, or space on the side for a two storey extension, maybe even a wrap-around one?

A good reception

A number of neighbours (most are semi-detacheds, No 7 is one of a handful of detacheds) have already broken into their garages and, thus far, most are single storey upgrades, nothing much more substantial. So far.

For those with additional funds or future planning, No 7 has a deep, lawned back garden, so anything built out this direction will work well to capture day and evening light, with more than enough ground left over for kicking a ball, holding a trampoline and/or creating an outdoor dining, entertaining and play space.

At present the dash and brick-faced detached home has two reception rooms off an original herringbone timber floored hall, front and back, and the main one (3.5m by 4.5m) has a gas fire in a brick surround, and there is a kitchen with utility and guest WC off.

Well-kept but dated decor and kitchen

Above are four bedrooms, three doubles (one is L-shaped) and a main tiled bathroom; the dated home has a D2 BER, and scope aplenty.

House styles and sizes vary along Allendale Avenue. The Price Register shows No 43 Allendale making €665,000 in 2022, No 4 fetched €475,000 in 2021 and in 2020 Tim Sullivan got €590,000, well above its €495,000 launch AMV for No 33, a larger, tall, three storey original 60s home, but he notes such bidding above asking prices has definitely slackened off in a cooling 2023 house market.

VERDICT: If location was deemed tops in 1960 for younger Cork families, the same judgement applies today, only more so, with an enormous range of suburban services and supports having grown all around Allendale Avenue and its neighbouring runs of mid-century homes.