€495k Charming Rossmore home is rural, but not remote

Former water-powered mill combines period charm, riverside tranquillity and versatile outbuildings on a secluded site

Tuck Mill, Kilbeloge, Rossmore, Clonakilty, Co Cork

Rossmore, West Cork
€495,000
Size	138 sq m (1,480 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	2
BER	D1

Two ‘improving’ owners have brought West Cork’s one-off heritage home, Tuck Mill, to the charming condition it’s in today, as it comes for sale with a €495,000 AMV, complete with mill pond and more.

A slice of the local Argideen river hinterland’s corn and fabrics milling and industrial history, the Tuck Mill is a refashioned now-four bed traditional style home, with two very useful lofted outbuildings. One’s clad in planked larch and painted an on-trend black, both come with roller shutter doors and are useful for a range of activities, from workshop to garage to studios.

Exact dates for Tuck Mill’s origin, flourishing and decline as a water-powered mill used for cleaning and thickening woven wool cloths aren’t easy to find. But, in terms of other and more recent dates as a residence, the Property Price Register shows it selling in 2017 as a private home for €229,000 in 2017, and for €150,000 in 2010 as a doer-up.

It featured in great health in these pages too, in 2012, when work was credited to a serial renovator who had done a number of old farm house rescues with panache.

That’s according to Andy Donoghue of Hodnett Forde, (they had it also listed back in 2012) who now guides at €495,000 for subsequent caring owners and who says “it’s a truly special place, rarely seen and impossible to recreate”.

The lovely mix is on a sloping 0.7 acre greened-in organic spot, a wildlife haven on a bend on a tiny back road between two other fairly small back roads north of Clonakilty and Rossmore with just one near neighbour “and you’d only get a car or two passing in a day," he reckons.

The back of the main house abuts the leafy lane, as do the two quite substantial outbuildings which flank the house, while the main façade, screened from the road, faces west over the grounds and pond by several tree ferns, looking down to where the Argideen river flows, on its 14 mile journey to Timoleague/Courtmacsherry from Reenascreena.

There’s a front terrace with raised beds and arch, and internally the old mill structure today takes the form of a traditional long Irish farmhouse, with two reception rooms, one with stove, and a double aspect kitchen at one end, with new units.

The main bathroom is on the return level to the first floor, complete with red Italian marble jacuzzi bath, and the upper floor has four bedrooms, all in a row, with an en suite with shower with the main bedroom, directly above the kitchen and which is also double aspect: blue and green glass blocks form part of the dividing wall for this bedroom’s corner-set shower.

Bedrooms have sloping ceilings and, below, ceilings in the three-in-a-row day rooms have painted beams and rough plaster finishes.

Between the main house, the two detached lofted multi-purpose outbuildings at either side, there’s a plethora of sunny sit-out spots, including a barbecue area and a decked and railed section outside a garden/music room.

VERDICT: Go with the flow, above a pretty river stretch and controllable feeder pond in a rural but not remote setting 10kms north of Clonakilty