Offers around the £3 million mark are being sought for one of the finest tillage farms in Co Meath and for its distinctive period house, Corbalton Hall, near Tara. Joint agents Hamilton Osborne King and Harper O'Grady are handling the sale of the 300-acre estate close to Ratoath and Dunshaughlin.
Corbalton Hall was owned by the Corbally-Stourton family for over a century and a half until it was sold in 1951. It changed hands again a few years later and, after being left vacant, it became somewhat dilapidated. The present owners, a German couple, bought it in 1964 and moved in temporarily to the front section with the intention of building a bungalow for themselves on the farm. This plan was abandoned because once they developed an affection for the old house, they set about restoring it.
They concentrated their efforts on the front section, which was designed by Francis Johnston and built in the first years of the 19th century. It served as a new entrance to an older house at the rear which was eventually demolished in the late 1960s.
Corbalton Hall is probably one of the smallest of the houses designed by Francis Johnston, who is best remembered for his work on Aras an Uachtarain, Armagh Palace, Killeen and Slane castles, Charleville Forest and Townley Hall.
Corbalton has a handsome, three-bay facade, a breakfront centre and a Wyatt window above a single-storey Ionic portico. The house is dominated by a grand, almost square, entrance hall with ornate plasterwork on the ceiling and a fine marble fireplace.
Like all good Georgian houses, it has an inner hall, from which a cantilevre staircase rises to the first floor. The stairwell is lit by a large stained-glass window.
There is a drawingroom and a diningroom on either side of the entrance hall. The drawingroom has superb proportions, a marble fireplace designed by Francis Johnston and double doors leading out into a modern double-glazed conservatory.
The diningroom had equally good proportions but during its restoration 30 years ago, it was reduced in size to allow three windows in a bow end to form part of a dining area off the kitchen. If the next owners want to restore the diningroom to its original size and style, then they can do so successfully because all the Georgian features are still in place.
As things stand, the views from the kitchen/dining area just before sunset can be magnificent with not a house in sight - just rolling fields down below the house, interspersed by mature woodlands. There are five bedrooms upstairs, one of them occupying what was once an elegant reception room.
Corbalton Hall has a lived-in feeling, and the new owners will obviously want to put their own stamp on the house by completely redecorating it. They will also have to refurbish the basement, which has been little used in recent years.
At the rear of the house there is a range of stables, which include 10 loose boxes, three coach-houses, a studio apartment, an old staff apartment and a billiards room. There is great scope to convert the block into a row of apartments.
The land is laid out in a way to facilitate easy sowing and harvesting. For that reason the biggest of the fields sweeping all around the front of the house has no less than 170 acres, making it one of the biggest fields in the county. The farm has traditionally opted for winter wheat but a crop of oilseed rape was sown harvested a few weeks ago.
