A few metres down the road from the impressive stone facade of Maynooth Castle and the town’s original university building sits number 1 Parson Street, a three-bed end-of-terrace property dating from about 1830. Although period homes are ten a penny in the capital, they are few and far between in this Kildare university town, where homes in housing estates and apartments make up most of the residential market. This property, along with three of its neighbours, is believed to have been built by the Duke of Leinster to house university employees or priests in training and it has been extensively updated over the years to create a highly functional home.
The owners bought the house 10 years ago for €134,000, according to the Property Price Register, and have greatly added to its footprint in that time; it now extends to 117sq m (1,259sq ft), with a good-sized back garden. They have since installed double-glazed windows and had the property insulated, giving it a C1 Ber, which is impressive for a home that is almost 200 years old. The owner says they were drawn to the property’s character and quirks, as well as its convenient location.
Number 1 Parson Street is a five-minute stroll from Maynooth University, where the grounds are an ideal place for the owners to walk their dog, and is just around the corner from the town’s main thoroughfare, replete with shops, cafes, pubs and restaurants. The owners also walk to the primary school at the top of the town with their children, and secondary schools are just a short cycle away. Moreover, the train station with regular services to Dublin city centre is just eight minutes from the terrace on foot.
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You enter this property through its bright yellow front door into a small reception room where an original cut-stone fireplace, which the owners had exposed and restored, makes a fantastic feature. It is used as a boot room and a place for the children to play but it could also serve as a home office or you could have a reading area with the addition of a comfy chair. Turning left under the stairwell, you arrive at a small livingroom with oak floors to the front of the house which could also make a great office.
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Continuing down the hall towards the back of the house, you arrive in the modern kitchen, which the owners had extended and refurbished in 2019. Here, the wooden sage units provide plenty of storage and house an integrated fridge, freezer and dishwasher. The big wood-topped breakfast bar is a useful addition to the space. To the right off the kitchen, the owners added a utility room, which also houses a large fridge-freezer, and a downstairs loo, accessed through a sliding pocket door.
Accessed from either side of the kitchen through alcoves that would once have been a window and the back door, you arrive into the spacious sunroom which acts as a living/dining space: a real highlight of this property. With lacquered herringbone wooden floors and a wood-burning stove at its centre, this is where the family spend most of their time, the owner says, and it’s no wonder why. The room is flooded with light from its multiple windows and six Velux windows in the pitched roof.
The sunroom opens out to the back garden through French doors; it is a good size with flower beds around the perimeter that a green-fingered buyer could really capitalise on. A gorgeous hidden feature is the stream just beyond the back fence; this would be an ideal spot to sit with a book and enjoy the calming sound of the running water. The garden is also private with plenty of mature trees surrounding it.
Upstairs the main bedroom lies to the front of the house; it has one built-in closet and a new owner may think about integrating further built-in storage on its interior wall. The second bedroom also sits at the front with an original fireplace detail and built-in floating shelves. The chimney breast makes it difficult to position a double bed in here but it functions well as a spacious single.
The third bedroom, another small double, is situated toward the back of the house and has an en suite. You go down one step off the landing to this room, which was added to the property before the owners bought it. The spacious bathroom with a free-standing bath and rainfall showerhead completes the first floor.
As the owners have decided to upsize nearby as their children are getting older, they have now placed this charming historic home on the market through Sherry FitzGerald Brady O’Flaherty. And while the asking price was set at €355,000, as of last Friday (June 2nd), the latest bid on the property stood at €400,000, according to the selling agent.
