What’s cooking at Myrtle Hill?
discovers a centuries’ old home in smart condition, with private access and intriguing water views.
Sharing the same name as the matriarch of Irish cooking and hospitality, Myrtle Allen — who was born Myrtle Hill — is an elegant series of about two dozen terraced homes facing over Cork’s River Lee, called Myrtle Hill.
But, many of the houses here go back nearly 100 years before Ballymaloe’s renowned Myrtle Hill/Allen was born in 1924: some of the Georgian and Victorian houses here in serried rows date from the 1830s, meaning they were also built before the mid 19th century rail line ran in front of them, between Myrtle Hill and the Lee along Lower Glanmire Road, serving Cobh and its Queenstown emigration days’ ships, as well as lines to Midleton, Youghal, and several points en route to the east.
The rail line, back now to renewed vigour and appreciative commuter uses with services reinstated to Midleton in 2009, today is an integral feature of living on Myrtle Hill, as it’s a straight line cul de sac, paralleling the river, road and rail line, and can only be accessed via an automated level crossing by a diminutive, no longer used keepers’ cottage.
The setting is just a half a mile or so from the 1890s-built Kent Station, and currently the Cobh and Midleton rail lines mean about 40 trains a day, though the regular few minutes’ wait for the gates to fall and rise is little more of a wait and n interlude than a motorist may spend at some suburban traffic lights.
South-facing, looking over the Lee to The Marina and to sites being freshly offered for south docks’ redevelopment once more, and basking in sun when it deigns to show its face, Myrtle Hill has seven of its c two dozen 19th century homes listed as protected structures, ranging from Nos 15-21, and one of that exalted few, mid terraced No 18, is up for sale, in immaculate order for a home of any age, not to mind one that’s nearly two centuries old.
It’s for sale with agent Jim Coughlan of James G Coughlan & Associates, who guide the three-storey house at an even €400,000, and he says it’s a Georgian gem which needs to be visited to appreciate its appeal: “If you are looking for something out of the ordinary, this is it,” he enthuses, adding “it’s been lovingly restored, retaining its original proportions and many noteworthy features.”
Painted a dusky pink and with reinstated six-over-six pane sash windows at its lower two levels, and three-over-three at its more dormer top level with sloping ceilings, No 18’s reached up a short flight of steps to its ornate fanlit front door and limestone threshold step, from the narrow access lane where there’s restricted residents’ car parking.
Privately owned and tastefully and appropriately decorated in an understated way, it has ornate ceiling plaster work and roses, several original fireplaces over several levels, and an elegant, full width first floor drawing room or classic piano nobile.
This mid-level living space, with fireplace, is about 15’ by 14’ with twin sash windows and river and Marina views, and has the option to be used as a fourth bedroom, as the current layout has only three, including one at the back with feature panelled vaulted ceilings, and another front one with slight ceiling vault, cornicing around its outline and a raised fire basket in an old chimney piece.
There’s a main bathroom (shower over the bath) on the first floor return, plus a guest WC at ground level and now, after a rear add-on, there’s a modern and relatively modest kitchen beyond a dining room which has a simple fireplace, which in turn links to the main 14’ by 10’ sitting room with a cast iron open fireplace, and south facing sash window.
The stairs connecting the three levels is graceful, carpeted with some exposed old pine timber on the turns, with original hand rail and slender spindles.
Much of the flooring on the three level is original old pine too, sanded back and buffed up to show a patina of its many years and thousands of foot prints, old nail marks and more.
There’s isn’t much to mention out the back where a tall sandstone cliff rises up from this setting (the townland is called Ballinamought West) to Montenotte way on high above, so No 18’s best outdoors space is the sun trap tiered front patio with seating section, and old limestone steps back down the the front’s boundary’s wrought iron railings, a perfect spot to watch passing rail and river traffic.
A number of Myrtle Hill houses have been upgraded in recent years, after neglect in previous decades and it’s looking better as a cohesive neighbourly whole than it did for many a long time.
Curiously, the Price Register only shows two sales at the address since 2010, the end terraced No 21 which sold in 2017 in very poor condition, for €140,000, and Myrtle Hill House, Tivoli, at an altogether different €1.15m, also in 2017.
Residents here on this Myrtle Hill terrace and private road, past the rail crossing, were offered the chance of access via a new bridge just to the east, built by CIE in the 2000s as it prepared to upgrade the Midleton service at a cost well in excess of €10 million.
The bridge, twisting out over the river and back over the Lower Glanmire Road and rail lines, serves a handful on homes including the beauties at Bellevue Terrace, but a small number of Myrtle Hill residents declined access to it.
