Convenience looms at €295k Douglas mill workers' terraced home

19th century No 4 Grange Terrace part of a run built to house mill workers and families in local industries

Workers at Morrogh's Mills, Douglas in 1933: houses were built locally for workers and their families, such as at Grange Terrace

Grange, Douglas, Cork
€295,000
Size	75 sq m (800 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	1
BER	Exempt

IT’S 300 years since milling took root in Cork’s Douglas village, pivoting the tiny former rural hamlet towards centuries of industry, from sail making to linen, flax, woollens, and other textiles. And Grange Terrace has been around for at least half of that long time span.

4 Grange Terrace is for sale guiding €295,000

Reckoned to date to the 1800s, it’s in a long terrace of a dozen or so brick-faced, Victorian-era homes built for mill workers. Some, to the west, were larger, for supervisors, and all were likely to have been welcomed by one and all as sturdy family homes.

A consignment of wool destined for New York departs St. Patrick's Woolen Mills in 1929

Milling activity in Douglas wound down around the 1970s, as home building continued at a pace between the village and Cork City, and over the hills to the east to Grange, to Donnybrook, onto and past Frankfield, with Carrigaline also now part of the metropolitan Cork district. The push is ongoing.

Rear view of 4 Grange Terrace

But, more time warped is the likes of Grange Terrace, with a pleasant aesthetic, thanks to its polychrome façade brickwork and arched door and window tops, where the mid-section no 4 is now for sale.

 Likely to have been a former rental, and put to the market largely unfurnished, it’s most likely to be bought by a first-time buyer, especially given its starting AMV of €295,000, quoted by agent Brian Olden, of Cohalan Downing, who reckons it might also appeal once more to investors, given it has three bedrooms.

Passers-by will be familiar with the look — described by Mr Olden as charming — and the run is set back very slightly from the start of the Grange/Frankfield Road by the junction with Donnybrook Hill.

Grange Terrace also had slightly larger homes for mill managers

No 4 has an enclosed rear yard, slender length of lawn with a southerly aspect, narrow hall to the side and front-to-back main living room with a fireplace, with a kitchen in an annex to the back.

Above, the same annex has a back landing with storage and bathroom with shower, and the original main section has two single bedrooms to the front and a double to the back.

Annex on first floor

It’s listed as BER exempt, and has a recently fitted new gas boiler, and is in good overall condition, ready for a burst of new energy and personality, if bought privately.

Kitchen at No 4 Grange Terrace

The Price Register shows seven Grange Terrace resales in the past 15 years, with next door’s No 5 fetching €248,000 in 2017, while most recently No 11 in 2022 sold for €260,000.

VERDICT: A slice of old Douglas mills history in what’s now one of the Cork’s most residential and mixed-use suburbs, dominated by two major shopping centres and a quirky range of shops and outlets in the former 19th century mill buildings and sites.