Co Kilkenny: €2.1m:Sleepy south Kilkenny villages are being transformed into commuter sputniks orbiting nearby Waterford. New housing estates in outposts such as Piltown, Mooncoin and Slieverue are attracting young families priced out of the city but the sheer scale of development has led to intense pressure on services and infrastructure.
Water shortages are now a frequent headache and, despite efforts by Kilkenny Co Council (like other local authorities across the country), there's no "quick-fix" solution.
So the buyer of Fiddown House, on 12.5 acres will appreciate the considerable advantage of having a private water supply from a well on the land.
The three-storey, 557sq m (6,000sq ft) six-bedroom, five bathroom, period house is for sale by private treaty through Shelley & Purcell of Carrick-on-Suir with an asking price of €2.1 million.
Fiddown is a blink-and-you-miss-it hamlet on the Co Kilkenny side of the River Suir within poc fáda distance of counties Waterford and Tipperary.
There are no shops - a Groceries and Provisions façade is now a "heritage" relic - but there is a pub, The Bridge Tavern.
Schools, shops and other services are available at Piltown (1.5 miles); Carrick-on-Suir (4.5 miles) and Waterford city (10 miles).
According to agent John Shelley, "Fiddown House was built in about 1725 as a dower-house on the Bessborough estate".
The interior of the neighbouring disused Church of Ireland offers a tantalising glimpse of the ancien régime with tablets celebrating the lives of various nobs and nobbesses and the fabulous Egyptian and Sienna marble tomb of Brabazon, first Earl of Bessborough and Viscount Duncannon, who died in 1758. Incidentally, in a delicious twist of history, nearby Bessborough House itself, once home to the Ponsonby family who revelled in the Earldom, has long since been transformed into Kildalton Agricultural College.
The owners of Fiddown House are classic downsizers and are leaving behind a "fully restored and renovated" sprawling family home ideally suited to a large family which likes country life.
The house is surrounded by an acre of pleasant gardens, divided into 'rooms', and planted with an interesting mix of mature shrubs and trees including the rarely-spotted pocket-handkerchief (Davidia involucrata).
Wild mink tend to gobble up the fish in the ornamental pond.
The remaining 11-plus acres are in pasture. Extensive outbuildings include a two-bedroom cottage, stabling for three horses, an old-world chicken house and storage barns.
A fountain in the back yard features a jubilantly gushing bronze frog.
