Co. Meath: The nuns who own Bellinter, a Georgian mansion near Navan, are asking for little more than the price of a D4 redbrick, writes Jack Fagan, Property Editor.
One of Ireland's grand 18th century country houses, Bellinter, near Navan, is to be offered for sale on the international market by an order of nuns.
Pat O'Hagan of HOK Country is seeking over €2.5 million for the Palladian mansion on 14 acres which has been run as a conference and retreat centre for the past 37 years by the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion.
Although the likelihood is that it will be bought for use as a small country house hotel, there is also the possibility that at the asking price - little more than the price of a good-sized redbrick in Dublin 4 and 6 - it will appeal to a wealthy family looking for an exceptional family home within 25 miles of Dublin.
An almost identical house on the opposite side of Navan, Ardbraccan - once the palace of the Protestant bishops of Meath - is now owned by a business family who spent a small fortune restoring it.
That would be the best possible outcome for Bellinter, which was the centrepiece of a huge estate owned continuously by the Preston family and their relations, the Briscoe family, for just over 200 years.
Mr George Briscoe, who sold the 800-acre estate in 1954 for £36,000, lives nearby in a comfortable single- storey home. He describes Bellinter as "a very happy and friendly house". When farming went through a rough patch in the 1940s and 1950s and the cost of maintaining the big house became prohibitive, he sold the estate to an English farmer.
It was later acquired by the Land Commission, which divided the estate into farms of 50 acres and sold it to the Sion nuns.
An old-style country gentlemen, George Briscoe is now the longest serving master of hounds in either Ireland or the UK. He is in his 61st year as master of the Tara Harriers, which were kennelled at Bellinter for over a century.
Bellinter was the venue for famous hunt balls in the first half of the last century. More than 400 supporters packed into the house on such occasions for dancing and suppers served by Lawlers of Naas.
Three generations of Briscoes, like the Prestons before them, ran the house with great style over the years with the help of a large number of servants. In winter months, fires were lit in virtually all 22 rooms to keep the place cosy.
Bellinter was one of the last country houses to have been designed by Richard Castle, the architect responsible for many of the great houses in Dublin and surrounding counties, including Carton, Russborough, Powerscourt and Leinster House. The site for Bellinter is a beautiful valley between the Hill of Tara and the River Boyne.
The house no longer looks out on vast pastureland but on the carefully tended grounds of the Royal Tara Golf Club. The fishing rights are still held by Bellinter but the salmon are few because of the activities of driftnet fishermen.
The Sion nuns halted the decline of Bellinter but after being in institutional use for so long, it will take a new owner to restore it to its original Georgian beauty. One of the first tasks will be to replace some PVC windows installed at the rear.
