Clontra is a remarkable small estate of 20 acres just 10 miles south of Dublin city centre. Although it is situated on the outskirts of Shankill, at the end of Quinn's Road, its atmosphere is determinedly rural, with railed paddocks, a walled garden, generous lawns and massive specimen trees.

A clean sea breeze blows over the cliffs, which pitch off the eastern end of the property. The buildings include a 1960s family home, a Victorian gate lodge, numerous outbuildings, and - the gem of the estate - an exquisite two-storey Gothic-style house, completed in 1862, and designed by Dublin architects Deane and Woodward.

The whole lot goes to auction on October 11th under the joint agencies of Jackson-Stops and Lisney, and has a guide price of over £4 million (€5.08m). However, given the importance of the house and the development potential of the land it would be no great surprise if it sold for up to double the pre-auction guide.

Deane and Woodward are probably best known for having designed the Kildare Street Club and the Museum Building at Trinity College Dublin, as well as the Museum Building at Oxford. Their Italian medieval revival style was unashamedly romantic, and may be seen in all its full-blown magnificence in Clontra House. The exterior is of heavy, cut granite crowned with a steep, hipped, slate roof. The grey stone is relieved by protruding bays and balconies, and with trefoil-topped window openings, embellished with redbrick arches and carved sandstone details. A trellis-work veranda encloses the lower storey of the south-facing frontage. Inside, a majestic granite staircase rises to the upper floor - the piano nobile - where the principal reception rooms are laid out around a central hall. All the window architraves, doors and door-frames are of dark-stained pitch pine, as are the exposed beams in the vaulted, lofty ceilings.

Both the drawingroom and the diningroom are huge, long spaces - perfect for entertaining on a grand scale. Their fairytale appearance is a tribute to the mad flights of fancy of the Pre-Raphaelite muralist, John Hungerford Pollen. The gable walls of the former room depict The Seven Ages of Woman while the latter is painted with frescoes of Spring Morning and Autumn Evening. Both rooms have wonderfully ornate marble mantels and soaring, chapel-like ceilings scattered with darting swallows and flamboyant floral motifs. The frescoes are in need of expert restoration - and indeed, the whole house requires some refurbishment. Also on this floor are a morningroom, a study, a small bedroom and a bathroom.

Downstairs there are four more bedrooms, a family room, a store room, a wine cellar and a large utility area. The kitchen has a four-door Aga, and an old-fashioned larder adjoining. The staff quarters, above the outbuildings, have been converted into a separate, two-bedroom apartment.

The walled garden is enclosed by warm, red brick and is home to many old fruit trees. On the outside of its walls there is a spectacular Gothic-style greenhouse, a listed structure (in need of some repair) with beautiful and highly-ornamented ironwork.

The gate lodge is a three-bedroom building, currently occupied on a controlled tenancy. The 1960s house in the grounds has its own entrance from the road, and is at a couple of fields' distance from the main house. It is a good-sized, two-storey house with four bedrooms, and is in need of some modernisation.