DevelopmentLand: A Palladian-style country house on 65 acres near the N11 - recently run as a boarding school - has good development potential, writes Jack Fagan
A girls boarding school in Rathnew, Co Wicklow, is going for sale this week now that the last sixth year class has completed the Leaving Certificate. The triangular-shaped property extends to 65 acres and includes a Palladian-style country house, a range of school buildings, a gate-lodge, courtyard and farm buildings.
Hamilton Osborne King's guide price of €15 million will seem on the low side given the quality of the main house and the fact that the grounds are central to Rathnew and will inevitably be used for the expansion of the village. A further attraction is that the land connects with the N11 via the adjacent Rathnew interchange. The sale will be by tender on July 15th.
According to the selling agents, the grounds are predominantly zoned for community and education use in the current Wicklow Environs Local Area Plan - a zoning that will invariably be upgraded now that the international congregation of sisters has closed down the school - while a portion of the land has been designated for town centre use.
There are compelling reasons for believing that Rathnew - as well as areas like Ashford and Wicklow town - will expand rapidly following the review of the local development plans and the completion of a new mains drainage scheme in 2006.
Rathnew and Wicklow town have already benefited from the extension of the M11 motorway and the upgraded N11 dual carrriageway. This has greatly shortened the commuting times from Wicklow to Greystones, Bray and south Dublin.
The centrepiece of the estate is Clermont House (previously known as Newrath House), an impressive three-storey Palladian-style house which was designed by Francis Bindon and built for the Earl of Milltown in 1730. Asymmetrical wing extensions were added to the house in the late 1890s.
Clermont was first used as a boarding school in 1956 after an L-shaped dormitory and classrooms were built.
The principal buildings cover an area of 5,000sq m (53,820sq ft). The grounds include an all-weather hockey pitch, tennis courts, swimming pool and various redbrick buildings as well as courtyard buildings.
The order which ran the school, the Religious of Christian Education, has catered for more than 1,500 students over the past 49 years. The order first signalled its intention to close the school over two years ago. It says the money generated by the sale will be used to fund "educational projects in Ireland and abroad". The order says: "As well as looking to the needs of their sisters worldwide and the work that the sisters currently do, the congregation will increasingly fund others to carry out projects."
