Old world charm in the Royal County but close to the city

A Georgian house on five acres in Meath, modernised in keeping with the simple, elegant style of the original, feels like it’s in the heart of the country, although it’s just a half-hour drive to Dublin airport.

Bellewstown House's owners bought it before auction for over €2 million in 2007 and renovated it extensively, before putting it back on the market in 2009, when work necessitated a move to Dublin. The asking price then was €1.85 million, but it didn't sell.

Pretty much unchanged since then, Bellewstown House, a 300sq m (3,229sq ft) six-bed house built around 1770, is now for sale through Sherry FitzGerald Country Homes and Sherry FitzGerald Lannon for €985,000.

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Bellewstown House, Bellewstown, Co Meath

Double doors with a fanlight above open into the entrance hall, floored with a high-end timber-effect vinyl called Moduleo: the diningroom on one side, the drawingroom on the other, both have simple decorative plasterwork and marble chimneypieces, and sash windows with working shutters, like all of the rooms in the house.

There’s an elegant recessed alcove facing the window in the drawingroom. A door at the back of the room opens into a smaller dual aspect family room, and from here back into the hall.

The diningroom has bookshelves on either side of the chimneybreast. A door from here leads into the kitchen; although the walls are very thick, it’s possible that new owners might create an opening from here into the kitchen to make it more of an open-plan space.

The kitchen has its original quarry tiles, a green Aga set into a white-tiled chimneybreast, and pale grey/green tongue-and-groove units. A door at the side opens onto a deck – there used to be a conservatory here. Two-storey stone outbuildings across a courtyard behind the kitchen have potential for conversion. Utilities – the washer and dryer – are currently housed here.

An elegant staircase winds up past the family bathroom on the return to a wide landing with a large window overlooking the gardens. There are four bedrooms  off this: the main bedroom has built-in wardrobes and an en suite bathroom.

Seven more stairs lead to the top of the house, to a timber-floored under-eaves space – where there are two more bedrooms – probably a children’s  nursery in the past.

This is horsey country – Bellewstown Racecourse, which dates back to the early 1700s and holds race meetings in July and August – is nearly across the road.

When the owners lived in Bellewstown House,  they had three ponies and belonged to the local pony club. There’s a paddock outside and four loose boxes that could be restored amongst a number of outbuildings.

The five acres includes a garden with a wide range of specimen trees, a tarmac tennis court and a space beside the house, once a walled garden, where the owners grew vegetables.

Bellewstown has a primary school, pub, golf course and GAA grounds. It’s situated 11km from Drogheda and 51km from Dublin – and it takes about 40 minutes to reach the city outside peak hours, says the owner. There is a regular train service from nearby Gormanston to Dublin

A listing in the Property Price Register for a Bellewstown House, registered as having sold in 2015 for €397,500, is a completely unrelated property.