Co Donegal: €2.5m A restored house of regal proportions has some of the finest gardens in the country, writes Rose Doyle

Ardnamona House is one of Donegal's finest, an early 19th century house of regal proportions which was originally a dower house and, later, a fishing lodge centred on Lough Eske, which it overlooks.

Completely and faithfully refurbished and restored in recent years, Ardnamona House these days glows with the gem-like colours of polished floors, carved wood and stained glass.

It is on the market with a guide of €2.5 million, with the sale being looked after by joint agents William Montgomery of Sothebys International and Helen Cassidy.

Most recently run as an upmarket B&B, Ardnamona is a house as renowned for its stunning National Heritage gardens, laid out over 88 acres and with the Blue Stack Mountains as a dramatic backdrop, as it is for its own elegance.

For generations it was the home of the Wallace family, enthusiastic plant collectors who were responsible for the growing of and exotic content of the gardens - in particular the famed rhododendrons which reach in some instances 60ft in height.

In shades of pink to dark red and white, they distinctively line the nearly half-mile long avenue leading to the house and have been likened to "wild gardening at its most exuberant and refined . . . a primeval rhododendron forest".

Built in the 1830s, the house itself has an immediate Victorian feel in the white-painted wrought-iron porch which leads to the main entrance hall.

The hall takes full advantage of Lough Eske with a window which overlooks its watery splendour throwing light onto the ceiling plasterwork and cornicing.

An inner hallway, with carved wooden staircase and stained glass window, leads to a drawingroom where there is a 17th century fireplace surrounded by decorative stone and a feature bay window.

The diningroom has the polished floorboards typical of Ardnamona House and another bay window. A library is accessed through an archway.

Elsewhere on this floor there is a morning room with French windows and a courting seat. The fully equipped and modernised kitchen has an Aga cooker.

Ardnamona House shows its age and style quite particularly in the back annexe where there is a music gallery with exposed beam ceilings and doors leading to the gardens. A playroom in this part of the house leads to an enclosed courtyard which has a central fountain.

There are seven bedrooms, six of them doubles with en suite bathrooms. There is a separate family bathroom.

The courtyard offers a whole set of other accommodations in a three-bedroom cottage with livingroom, kitchen and bathroom. It also has a couple of stables and a workshop.

Other stone outhouses stable a donkey and make for storage areas.

Ardnamona, as long ago as 1835 was described as "one of the most picturesque domains in rural Ireland", an appeal which owed a lot to the gardens' two jetties and extensive frontage onto Lough Eske.

The gardens were given National Heritage status in 1991, largely on account of the rhododendrons which were planted in the 1880s from seed, the cuttings famously brought to Ardnamona from the Imperial Gardens in Peking and the Palace Gardens in Katmandu.

The walks and paths are laid out variously in such as a Japanese Garden, Sunken Garden, Pinetum and Arboretum.

All of this privacy is further enhanced by the adjoining native oak wood, one of the last in the country and itself once part of the Ardnamona estate.

Donegal town is 15 minutes drive away and Letterkenny 31 miles distant. Sligo town and airport are 40 miles to the south.