Bermingham house, which is new to the market in the past month or two, is a Georgian mansion with seven bedrooms. The house sits on a sizable 211-acre farm and is steeped in history.
The grounds include a mixture of good-quality grassland and mixed-quality land which is surrounded by an esker. Even just driving up to the property you can quickly get a feel for the long history behind it. It has many of the original features, including old wrought iron gates as they were hundreds of years ago.
A stone wall surrounds the majority of the estate but in many areas the walls are in need of refurbishment to bring them back to their past glory. Passing by the property by the main road, the tree-lined fields gently shield the large bright-coloured house from view for the large part.
The property is just two miles outside Tuam on the Bermingham road. The house is described as a classical Georgian country house which has been modernised over time. As you step inside the house, you instantly get a feel for the long history behind the property.
The house was built in 1730 by the Earl of Louth and 15th Baron of Athenry, John de Bermingham. The house passed to the Denis family in the 19th century. The old stone walls surrounding the property lead you to the tree-lined entrance. As you advance up the drive, the house remains hidden until you are nearly at it. Its striking colour and sheer size is then quite evident and impressive.
The house itself is a two-storey and stands as a large block, five bays to the east and four bays to the west. As you approach the front door, you get a feel for the skill of the craftsmen who built the house.
The front door is large and has an old-style country manor feel to it. As you rise the stone steps to the house, the cut-stone surround of the door is striking.
While the outside of the house is quite modest, once you step inside the old marble tiles, high ceilings and excellently handcrafted timberwork really make the house feel a little more special. The house has real character and class that is rare these days. To the right of the main hall are two reception rooms and an old-style staircase is situated at the end.
The ground floor also has a kitchen, utility room, breakfast room, dining room, drawing room and smoking room along with a rear hall. On the first floor, the house has seven large bedrooms along with a main bathroom, an upstairs sitting room and a large landing.
Six of the seven bedrooms are en suites, which offers the potential to make this a guest house. The kitchen is bright and large, with the centre piece of any old-style kitchen being the AGA cooker. The rear hall off the kitchen leads to a self-contained apartment.
The guest apartment has a comfortable sitting room, a small kitchen and upstairs a bedroom and bathroom. While the house is in quite good condition, it is in need of some restoration work and will require investment from a prospective buyer.
As you step outside the rear of the house, there is a courtyard nestled around you built from stone walls with slate roofs. As the house has a strong hunting heritage, naturally there are several horse stables in the yard. To the rear of the courtyard is the old-style walled gardens.
The total lands surrounding the house amount to about 211 acres. This is a mixture of dry grassland, woodland area and poorer-quality land. While the majority of the farmland is of good quality, there has been little spent in terms of modernising the holding over the past few years. The main farm yard is separated from the courtyard by a distance of about 400m.
While there are some housing facilities, animal housing is quite limited and would require investment in the view of intensifying production from the land. While there are fences on all boundaries, certain areas are in need of upgrading also.
Of the 211 acres, approximately half of this is good-quality land, the remainder consists of poorer-quality land with some scrub, woodland and some marshy ground. The farm itself is surrounded by an esker.
Guide of €1,750,000
The property has been offered to the market by the Tuam-based Sherry FitzGerald Manion auctioneers. According to Michael Manion, the property was offered for sale some years ago but was subsequently withdrawn from sale. The estate has come back on the market in the last month or two. It is understood that as of yet there have been no offers on the property but there has been a considerable amount of interest.
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