Back in the day, the walled gardens at Tulach Nore had more than 60 fruit trees, and enough soft fruit and vegetable plants to feed the denizens of the 255-acre estate.
James, son of the current owners, remembers the family story of his great grandfather keeping lookout so the local children could help themselves to raspberries and strawberries, carrying them home in their pockets and pinnies.
“The cook had a sideline selling the surplus fruit herself,” he says. “So she’d go berserk, but my great grandfather liked to share them locally.”
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The house and lands has been in the same family since the time of Henry J Harding, who was born in 1846.
He demolished the original house, and built Tulach Nore between 1875 and 1877.
It’s a two storey, eight-bedroom house, with woodlands, grazing, a working farmyard, and 1,100 metres of river frontage on the Nore.
The house has been well kept and, when the original Henry’s son, Colonel George Harding, came home from the Boer War and first World War to retire, he added five bays and two wings to the house for his comfort.
The house has passed through the generations, and James remembers spending all his school holidays there.
“We’d go over on the ferry and drive across. Those days it would take ages, but the road is so good now, you can be in Dublin in an hour.
“The house was always warm, but I think that was my mother’s doing. My grandfather would rather turn off the heating when we weren’t there, and sit with his jumpers on.”
Other signs of the Colonel’s strong personality can be seen in quirky elements such as the double WC just off the entrance hall.
“There are two loos, so one can sit and chat. If one wants to . . . ”
The entrance hall gives onto a vast drawing room with three beautiful bay windows, which in turn leads to a billiards room, large enough to house a full sized snooker table. To the left are a library and drawing room.
Eight bedrooms
Upstairs, the eight bedrooms, two bathrooms and sewing room might be reconfigured to give bigger spaces, although the current arrangement includes three very large doubles, the master having two bay windows, a dressing room and an en-suite.
Back downstairs, the kitchen arrangements are testament to the house’s history, when former generations employed cooks and maids.
"That's the thing that will be changed," says James. If you were to knock through between what is currently the pantry, kitchen and scullery, you would end up with a lovely kitchen space with three windows looking out beyond the yard to the Slieve Blooms beyond.
Roseanne De Vere Hunt of Sherry FitzGerald Country Homes, who are looking after the sale in association with Christies International and Sherry FitzGerald in Roscrea, says the buyer could well be international.
“The residence is well proportioned, and the views over the Slieve Bloom mountains and frontage onto the Nore, make this one of the finest estates and farms of the year so far to come to the market.”
They are quoting €2.25 million by private treaty.
At this time of the year, James says, “the birds are breeding, and there’s wildlife everywhere.
“The farm is seven or eight generations in the family. I used to love coming over as a boy. It’s one of those lovely Irish houses, which fortunately has survived.”
Anyone interested in making similar memories for generations to come should go and view.
