20 Bricks&Mortar
What £900,000 buys you in...
Gloucestershire
Manor House is a six-bedroom pile in
Gaunt’s Earthcott, a medieval hamlet.
The grade II* listed house has a mason’s
plaque dated 1603. Flagstone floors,
beamed ceilings and fireplaces give it
plenty of period charm, and 4,500 sq ft
of accommodation includes three
reception rooms and three bathrooms
arranged over three floors. The house
has been subdivided into two dwellings,
with two staircases and two kitchen/
diners, and there is a summerhouse in
the four and a half acres of lovely
gardens. Bristol Parkway station is four
miles away; the fast train to London
Paddington takes 67 minutes.
Air pollution 9.2mcg/m³ particulate
pollution annual average, 0.8mcg/m³
below the WHO guideline of 10mcg/m³.
Upside A John Lewis within six miles.
Downside It needs modernisation.
Contact rupertoliver.co.uk
Shropshire
Cedars House is a smart seven-bedroom
Georgian house on the fringes of Much
Wenlock. The small town, a regional
winner in last year’s Sunday Times Best
Places to Live, was the childhood home
of the painter John Constable as well as
the classicist Mary Beard. It has a weekly
farmers’ market and a well-regarded
butcher, baker and deli. There are five
reception rooms with high ceilings, a
kitchen/breakfast room, a utility room,
a cellar, a study and a games room.
A stone garage block and coach house
stand in more than an acre of grounds.
Hazeldene, an adjacent three-bedroom
cottage, is also for sale. Shrewsbury is
about a half-hour drive away.
Air pollution 7mcg/m³, 3mcg/m³ below
the WHO guideline of 10mcg/m³.
Upside Bags of Georgian charm.
Downside The kitchen could be bigger.
Contact struttandparker.com£895,000 £900,
D
ublin evokes images of
many things — pubs,
tearooms, fanlights
and grey skies.
California glamour,
not so much. Yet on a
sunny day, if you get
off the train nine miles
south of the city in the suburb of
Killiney, it is as if you have clicked your
heels and said: “There’s no place like
Malibu.” Before you is an epic beach
with a backdrop of mountains and
wooded hills dotted with mansions, palm
trees and joggers.
Indeed, the tabloids have dubbed this
stretch of coast “Bel Eire” for its LA vibe
and celebrity residents: Bono and the
Edge from U2, Enya and the film
director Neil Jordan. For those who
favour a more European comparison —
this is the EU after all — Killiney has
also been dubbed Ireland’s Amalfi coast,
as the cliffs are dotted with Italianate
villas in pastel shades, Italian place
names (Sorrento, Palermo, Merano,
Montebello, Vico) and Riviera-esque
vegetation (eucalyptus, palm trees).
Summerhill House, on the market for
€8.9 million (£8.1 million) with Sotheby’s
International Realty, used to be called
Santa Severina when it was built in 1850.
Back then, Killiney was a holiday retreat
for wealthy Dubliners, before the arrival
Wish you lived here?
months — and they are milking the
Damon connection. Damon posed for
photographs with staff at Gutter
Bookshop, Ouzos steak and seafood
restaurant and the Corner Note Café;
the owners of Country Bake, a bakery
and coffee shop, posted a photograph of
Damon on Facebook on his last day in
town. It read: “Our last visit from Matt
and his family for a while. Safe travels!
Thanks for bringing some excitement to
Dalkey during this pandemic!”
During lockdown, when locals were
restricted to exercising within two
kilometres of their homes, Damon told
a local DJ: “[Within] two kilometres of
here there’s trees and forests and woods
and ocean. I can’t think of any place
you’d rather want to be in a 2km radius.”
Damon says he will be back. American
buyers love Killiney and Dalkey, says
Guy Craigie, the director of residential
at Knight Frank, as do a growing
number of Brits; it has also been recently
discovered by the Chinese. The best
roads with the sea views are Killiney Hill
Road, St George’s Avenue and Vico
Road, where houses sell for between
€1.5 million and €10 million. The
southern end of the beach is best for dog
walkers — you can let pets off the lead
there, according to Rosie Mulvany,
senior sales director at Sherry Fitzgerald.
For those who can’t afford to keep
up with Bono, you could buy a three-
bedroom semi away from the sea for
€500,000, Mulvany says, although
Killiney mostly comprises detached
homes on at least a quarter of an acre —
Dalkey has more period terraces, with a
two-bedroom one on now for €475,000.
The area is more affordable than
Malibu, and with Dublin just a three-
hour ferry journey from the UK, Killiney
might be a more realistic alternative for
buyers looking for the coastal dream.
You won’t need as much sunscreen.of the trains turned it into an affluent
suburb (it is now 45 minutes by Dart
from the city centre, and the average
house price is about €900,000,
compared with €375,000 for Dublin as a
whole). Summerhill House is only an
eight-minute walk from the Dart station,
but the setting calls to mind Gore Vidal
and Ravello more than James Joyce and
Dubliners. In Tuscan pink, it has
neoclassical terraces overlooking the sea,
and five acres of manicured gardens,
with gravel paths and a waterfall gushing
into an ornate fountain. The holiday
mood is augmented by the tennis court,
two putting greens and a guesthouse.
The owners bought it 42 years ago and
raised six children there. Back then,
Killiney was a quiet leafy suburb.
Then, in the late 1980s, Bono bought
Temple Hill, a 6,000 sq ft mansion
above the beach, and put Killiney on the
map, and in the headlines, because of his
serial renovations and battles with the
planners — in the 1990s he had a
swimming pool carved into the hillside;
and in 2004, wanting more space, he
bought a miniature castle next door.
The moment the area’s profile truly
went global was this past spring, when
Matt Damon and his family locked down
for two months in neighbouring Dalkey,
Killiney’s shopping village. (Killiney itself
is a residential neighbourhood with no
commercial high street.)
Damon was in town to shoot the
Ridley Scott film The Last Duel when the
pandemic hit, so he hunkered down in
the €8 million house he was renting
from Eddie Irvine, the ex-Formula One
driver, for a reported €7,300 a week.
Pictures of him at the beach went viral;
he was carrying his towels in a plastic
bag from SuperValu, a supermarket
chain. But most of Dalkey’s shops are
independent — in 2008 a Starbucks
closed after locals boycotted it for 13You’ll be starstruck
by this seaside area
known as Ireland’s
Amalfi coast. By
Hugh Graham
Killiney