Inistioge/€525,000: The essayist Hubert Butler's charming 1984 account of life "Beside The Nore" described the countryside south of Kilkenny city with its "stretch of cornfields, nut groves and mountain slopes" as an area with "so much tranquil beauty around that some hope and many fear that the tourist agencies will soon discover us".
They haven't quite. "There are many beautiful little towns along the Nore", he wrote, "with hump-backed bridges, and winding streets and large trees." They include Inistioge, "one of the loveliest of Irish villages".
Just four miles away, by the banks of the Nore in the little townland of Rathsnagadan is River Cottage, a 116sq m (1,250sq ft) house on one-third of an acre to be sold at auction on October 5th. The AMV is €525,000 and the agent is Philip Carton at PN O'Gorman, of New Ross.
The three-bedroom, two-storey house has been exquisitely restored and extended by Clodagh Nolan, a former Dublin architect who moved to the secret heart of County Kilkenny in 2004. She has created a stylish weekend bolt-hole, less than two hours' from Dublin, inspirational enough to coax even a stockbroker to wax lyrical.
Butler recalled an early 20th century childhood idyll of "driving donkey carts down little lanes to riverside ruins beside which we bathed and fished and picnicked". The means of transport has changed and the roads have improved (slightly) but, astonishingly, a century later, the landscape he described is remarkably unscathed.
River Cottage lies down a once-upon-a-time country lane lined with wild pink Himalayan Balsam leading to a mediaeval stone pier - with mooring, angling and swimming in a setting from The Wind in the Willows. ("Mole thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river").
To one side of the house, off-road parking space for three cars is tastefully laid with "plummy purple-coloured" crushed slate. A simple little garden, backed by a dry stone wall, has a weeping willow and a bank of lavender - perfect for a Ballsbridge boulevardier who likes his gin pink and his countryside neat.
Indoors, painted wooden sheeting on walls; a cast-iron stove; stained wooden floors and traditional cast-iron radiators are complemented by contemporary fittings. The bespoke kitchen contains a limestone worktop, walnut units and Siemens gadgetry; a grown-up shower room has a limestone shelf and glass mosaic tiles; while the main bathroom has a free-standing cast-iron bath.
A double-height livingroom has views to the river and bedrooms feature spectacular "bullseye" windows.
Double doors from the kitchen and the livingroom lead to a south and west-facing terrace with a fixed limestone table and is decked with spruced-up scaffolding planks.
Ms Nolan is already planning further restoration projects in the area but it will be a challenge to find a setting to rival River Cottage.
