Be Enchanted by home on majestic gardens in Enniskerry for €1.8m

The Garden Cottage, lying within a walled garden and riverbank meadow at Tinnahinch, just outside Enniskerry in Co Wicklow, was once part of the homestead of the famous 18th century parliamentarian Henry Grattan.

He acquired the estate through a parliamentary grant of £100,000 – an enormous sum back in the 1700s – from a grateful nation.

The entire estate was subsequently purchased by the Duff family.

"I will never forget, we bought it on the seventh of July 1977 from the Grattan Bellew family," says Hugh Duff, who lives in a mews on the lands.

“The house itself had been knocked for salvage in 1953, and the wall panelling and stained glass were sold off through Sotheby’s.”

The main house was sold for £1.8 million in 1999 when it was a ruin and was rebuilt as a millennium project by the then owners, who sold the property in 2013 for €3.8 million.

The Duff family retained 35 acres and a few properties, including the Garden Cottage, on the lands and established the Tinnahinch Fly Fishery there.

Set along a renowned stretch of river fishing, the Garden Cottage is located just over five kilometres from Kilmacanogue, six kilometres from Bray, and just over a kilometre from the charming village of Enniskerry. The normally sedate and quaint village became a Disney set this summer for Disenchanted, the sequel to the Enchanted film, resulting in the entire village being smothered in plastic garlands of wisteria and yellow roses.

For the new owners of The Garden Cottage, which is part of, though completely private from, the Tinnahinch Fly Fishing Centre, plastic flowers will be the last thing on their minds. The gardens are simply wonderful and the real selling point of the property which has now been launched through Sherry FitzGerald seeking €1.8 million.

Along with lots of specimen plants and trees that were planted hundreds of years ago, are three interesting yew arches, including a four-sided one and some damson and fig trees.

Though claimed by Jenkinstown Castle in Kilkenny, Duff says that the 1805 poem, The Last Rose of Summer by Thomas Moore, was actually written in the gardens of Grattan House, and a slip taken from the pink rose bush, still growing in the gardens of the cottage, is currently on sale.

“All the garden workers in the 1970s and the Grattan Bellew family themselves told us about the poem and showed us the exact rose bush,” recalls Duff.

Hardly a cottage as it extends to 158sq m (1,707sq ft), the three bedroom house is set in a riverside oasis sheltered by woodlands on the banks of the River Dargle, which is fed from the Powerscourt Waterfall – the highest cascade in the country – and the Glencree River.

With a southerly aspect it has a great sunroom, bathed in natural light, that looks out upon and opens onto the gardens via three French doors.

The Tinnahinch Estate and Fishery including the Garden Cottage, a guest lodge and period lodge on 35 acres, came to the market in 2014 seeking € 5 million. It failed to sell and appeared again in 2016 with a reduced asking price of €3.9 million. Now Duff is just selling the cottage on two acres of superb walled gardens and retaining the two other houses and fishery.

The fishery specialises in sea trout and held the record for many years for the largest sea trout caught in Ireland (over 12lbs). Duff dug out a five acre lake on the lands that are now stocked with brown trout, so there is year-round fishing.

For new owners to have a fly fishing facility next door to a cottage, lying on two acres of majestic gardens, may just be a slice of heaven in the Garden County.

The Garden Cottage, with a Ber of E1, is on the market with Sherry Fitzgerald seeking €1.8 million.