Rathmines: €6mWell lived-in and loved, 11 Palmerston Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6 has a welcoming, classical opulence with its wealth of original plasterwork, high wide windows and fireplaces in every bedroom.

If a virtue can be attached to a house, then this is a kind one. It's given shelter too, in its 110ft long rear garden, to what is probably the oldest ginkgo biloba tree in Ireland.

Built in 1866 by the Plunkett family, number 11 looks detached from the front but is in fact joined to its neighbour at the annex.

There are four bedrooms (one in use as a library) in the two storeys over the garden level as well as two reception rooms, sunroom and kitchen-cum-breakfastroom.

A pre-'63 apartment with separate entrance at garden level has two bedrooms and two reception rooms. Sherry FitzGerald is looking for €6 million by private treaty for the 394sq m (4,250sq ft) house.

The perfectly proportioned main drawing and diningrooms are decorated in keeping with the period style of the house: they have dusty pink coloured walls, swathes of draped curtains and particularly fine matching marble fireplaces.

A highly ornate arch in the entrance hallway is lit by the wide fanlight over the door.

All of the bedrooms have en suite bathrooms and all have shutters in working order. Shelves reach the high ceiling in the library, which has a cast-iron fireplace and rear windows with views over a veritable forest of trees - more than you could ever have imagined growing in Dublin 6. The vibrantly painted kitchen/breakfastroom has a Stanley range and leads to the sunroom, which has a vaulted, glazed ceiling. It leads to a peaceful decking area overlooking the garden. Arguably the pièce de resistance, number 11's garden is a heady, lush experience with the aforementioned ginkgo biloba, a spreading magnolia and several varieties of other high, old trees.

There is a pond, a secret garden and a birds' chorus which never seems to end.