The Duke of Wellington's London home is Apsley House — this is its €1.1m Killumney namesake
Apsley House, Killumney. Pictures: Lyne Media
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Ovens, Cork |
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€1.1m |
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Size |
386 sq m (4155 sq ft) |
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Bedrooms |
4 |
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Bathrooms |
3 |
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BER |
Exempt |
IF you google Apsley House because the name sounds vaguely familiar, you will initially hit upon the London home of the first Duke of Wellington. Anyone writing to the duke at the time – perhaps to congratulate him for Waterloo – simply addressed the letter to “Number 1, London”. That’s how grand Apsley House was. It still is, except that its postal address has changed to 149 Piccadilly and instead of just being the glittering residence of the Iron Duke’s blue-blooded descendants, commoners get to enjoy it too. It’s a public museum and home to one of the finest art collections in London.
Over on this side of the Irish sea, there’s another Apsley House. It’s not palatial like the London version, but it’s pretty grand by most standards.
And while its history has nothing to do with an era-defining battle, it does have an interesting backstory.
Buildings of Ireland, our architectural heritage database, dates it to somewhere between 1780-1820 and reckons that as it’s next to a former mill, it may once have served as the mill manager’s house.
Lisney Sotheby’s, who are handling the sale of Killumney’s Apsley House, say it was once owned by the Morton family and that the ruins adjacent to it are of the Bride Flour Mill.
The Morton family is believed to have moved into Apsley House in 1848, with milling continuing until the end of the 19th century (perhaps they were relations of the Ballymena Mortons, whose flour brand, founded in 1835, still exists?).
Other historical records (Samuel Lewis’ A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837) mention a mill on the River Bride in Killumney belonging to a Mr D O’Donovan junior, but it’s the same mill as is associated with Apsley House is anyone’s guess.
The current owner says it was the Mortons that “gentrified the house”, transforming it from a traditional smallish farmhouse to the very large, 4,155 sq ft, fairly splendid premises that it is today. Probably the most significant part of their renovation work was to join the original house to a large agricultural building immediately to the rear. The result is an L-shaped home with two wings at right angles to each other, with slightly different roof heights.
The owner heard other stories too about the history of Apsley House, which she says she can’t substantiate, such as that the original property was part of the dowry of the young bride of the Earl of Cork, who is alleged to have died in childbirth. What can be stood up is that the local GP once lived there, up to 40 or 50 years ago, running his surgery out of the premises.
The original lands around Apsley House are believed to have extended to about 1,000 acres, the owner says, but were sold off over time, with the final 30 acres, but one, sold to the O’Flynn Group in the 1980s for the development of Apsley Court.
The land the house is now on extends to that one remaining acre and is comprised mostly of what constituted the original walled garden.
It looks terrific, but it wasn’t in great shape when the owner bought the house in 2012.
“There was 3m of briars. It had to tackle it with chainsaws and strimmers,” she says.
There was a good bit to do to the house too, although it had been lived in, so it wasn’t derelict.
The new owner hired professional help, including architect Aoife De Bhaill of Barnes Murray De Bhaill consulting engineers, and Kieran Murray, engineer with the same firm.
She also hired Leo Linehan of Linehan’s Design Cork for the build work and to design and fit a new kitchen.
“The biggest job in the first 12 months was digging up the ground floor concrete floor and putting in underfloor heating,” the owner says.
Another significant project was remodelling the kitchen, extending it by commandeering a portion of an adjoining room.
The owner did a good chunk of work herself, cleaning up replacement floorboards she bought from Birr GAA Club after seeing them advertised online.
“They were made of old oak and that is what I wanted,” she says.
She did a lot of the internal paintwork too and external pointwork, replacing damaged mortar after Leo Linehan gave her a crash course.
“He was perfectly happy to show me how to do it properly,” the owner says.
After two years of renovating, the house was nearly ready, and attention turned to the roof. It turned out repair work would not be enough and so it had to be replaced.
“At that point, I just bit the bullet and put on a new slate roof,” says the owner.
The Property Price Register records that the house sold in 2012 for €385,000 but what has been put into it since dwarfs that figure. In addition to the underfloor heating, new kitchen and replacement roof, the house was rewired and replumbed and new windows put in where possible, and where it wasn’t possible, they were renovated and shutters retained.
Modern bathrooms were installed too.
“Things like this always turn into a bigger project than was planned, but I just remind myself of a very good bit of advice a friend once gave me, which is: “You do not apply investment criteria to a home you are going to live in”. And I have lived very happily at Apsley House for 12 years.” A touch of serendipity brought the West-Indies born, UK-reared owner to Apsley in the first place. She inherited “half a farm” near Lissarda (on the Cork to Macroom road) and was considering whether to build there when she spotted Apsley House on a website.
“I didn’t really think it was what I wanted, but I arranged a visit anyway and discovered it was much more charming than what I thought,” the owner says.
It also matched her key house-hunting criteria.
“I had two criteria: essential and desirable. It was essential that whatever I bought be in a village (it is, Killumney) and it was desirable that it would be between Lissarda and Cork City. There weren’t many homes that fitted that profile, but Apsley House did,” the owner says.
Proximity to a village and quick access to a city was important because the owner’s plan was to bring her elderly Irish-born parents home from the UK to live with her and they had medical needs.
Killumney - where Ballygroman House, another big home with a history, has just gone sale agreed for €1.375m (it featured here, with a €1.2m guide) - is just 10 minutes from GPs and pharmacies in Ballincollig and about 20 minutes from the hospital in Wilton.
The owner had great space to accommodate her parents too and she turned one of the big downstairs reception rooms into a bedroom with ensuite bathroom.
There’s a large living room on the ground floor too, as well as the bespoke kitchen diner, a utility, pantry and guest WC and an open-plan office area off the hallway.
The owner’s favourite reception room is upstairs. “It’s a quieter room, there’s no TV there,” she says.
Apsley House has all of the lovely features you would expect of a beautiful period home: high ceilings, arches, floor-to-ceiling windows, ornate fireplaces, magnificent fanlit entrance door, good garden.
It also has a personality, the owner says, and in her opinion, “it’s a happy personality, because it’s a house that feels comfortable in itself”.
“And what’s great for a buyer, is that the boring work is done,” she adds, “but there is still lots of opportunity for new owners to put their mark on it.” She points out that despite its vintage, it’s a terrifically bright house, awash with natural light. The kitchen overlooks a south-facing terrace, and there’s a terrific suntrap sitting-out area in the corner of the L to the rear.
Eileen Neville of Lisney Sotheby’s is the agent selling Apsley House and she says it’s the type of property “that comes up once in a blue moon”.
“We are very excited about it, it has great character and a great history. And the space and volume of the rooms are amazing.” Potential buyers are lining up to view, Ms Neville adds, and they include families from home and abroad, with enquiries from the UK and the US.
The vendor, who is returning to the UK as her parents have passed away, says she believes it is “natually, a family home” in a good location, rural, but not too far from the city. A single-storey building adjoining Apsley House is not owned by the vendor and she believes it was previously the creamery manager’s house as the mill ultimately became a creamery.
Ms Neville points out that the sale includes three outhouses, formerly stables, which could be home offices or a gym, or stables again. She says the house, on land surrounded by mature trees on meticulously landscaped grounds, is close to the south ring road network.
Kudos to the owner for doing a terrific job and preserving Apsley for generations to come. The next owner will reap the benefits.
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