Co Kildare: €800,000: A splendid solid rectory next to Kilkea Castle could be the setting for a Victorian novel. Rose Doyle reports

Moodily and not a little romantically hidden by trees behind a church off a verdant Co Kildare road, The Rectory, Kilkea, Castledermot has enough Gothic splendour and grey limestone for even the ripest 19th century novel.

Its origins are impeccably of that time: the fourth Duke of Leinster had The Rectory built for his Duchess in 1865 as the glebe house for Kilkea church, itself completed two years earlier.

Both church and rectory were designed by RHA architect J J McCarthy, and his original plans hang on the building's walls.

The property is adjacent to Kilkea Castle, a hotel which has an 18-hole golf course.

The Rectory has a fine, solid feel to it. The limestone façade is unimpaired, the structure sound and the inside unchanged and cherished, though in need of modernisation.

There are five bedrooms, a linen room and three reception rooms over some 232sq m (2,500sq ft) of floor space.

It sits on around two acres (3.4 hectares) and has its own, two-storey coach-house, stables, byre and piggery across a rear courtyard.

The 112sq m (1,200sq ft) coach-house has obvious development potential.

House, lands (including a tennis court) and outhouses are for sale through Jordan auctioneers, which is guiding €800,000 in advance of the July 7th auction.

The Rectory was bought by a local family, the Greenes, from Lord Kildare, who'd sold the neighbouring Kilkea Castle some time before, about 30 years ago.

The driveway to The Rectory's heavy mahogany entrance door winds past trimmed lawns, the side of the church, and The Rectory's orchard.

Inside, ceilings are as high as 13ft and original features - including doors (with as many as nine panels in some), most fireplaces and windows - are all intact.

So, too, are the original walls, leaving the rooms laid out as originally intended.

The drawingroom at the front has a shuttered bay window and white marble fireplace with an inlaid green maple leaf motif.

The diningroom has an unfortunate 1970s-style brick fireplace and an interesting arched alcove, which seems to pick up on the style of the nearby church spire. A study has an original russet coloured dappled marble fireplace.

The kitchen overlooks the driveway. It has an Aga but definitely needs modernising.

The bedrooms are reasonably sized and the pleasant, bright landing has bookshelves and an arched, church-like window.

There is fishing on the River Griese and Barrow nearby and golf courses at Kilkea, Carlow, Rathsallagh and Athy.