West Cork farm may be auctioned if interest is sufficient
The land anywhere in the vicinity of Bandon town in West Cork is always going to raise a lot of local interest.
This is a part of the world associated with a very vibrant farming scene, resplendent with plenty of top-quality and well-maintained holdings.
The latest offer from Bandon-based Sherry Fitzgerald Brennan Busteed is located in the townland of Knockadooma.
This is situated just 5km south of Crookstown — a village that will be very familiar to regular travellers to West Cork.
Newcestown lies 5.5km to the east, while the bustling market town of Bandon is 13.5km to the south of this residential holding of 44 acres.
According to selling agent Don Brennan, the current owner is retiring from farming at the ripe old age of 90, having only moved from the farmhouse in recent years.
“The land has been rented for the last couple of years,” says Don, “but it has been kept in good order and it’s a farm with a strong reputation going back over the years.”
The farm certainly has some very strong quality farming heritage: The holding was crowned Grassland Farm of the Year in 1963.
It’s a small enough farm with 44 acres,” says Don, “but it’s very good land — all of it.
The house is a traditional two-storey stone-built farmhouse (with an extension to the rear added on in the 1970s) and is accompanied by a good collection of outbuildings.
According to the selling agents, the house is in good order but in need of renovation.
“He [the owner] would have been living in it himself up until recent years but it would need some work done to it at this point. The outbuildings are of good quality.”
Accommodation in the house includes an entrance porch, entrance hall, lounge dining room, kitchen (with built-in units and cast-iron range), back kitchen and shower-room with toilet on the ground floor.
On the first floor, there are four bedrooms (three of them with built-in wardrobes) and a family bathroom.
The outbuildings are gathered around a well-laid out yard. These include a large barn, a lean-to and four more outbuildings.
“The land is of such good quality that you could drive on it with an ordinary car, as it’s so well drained. For example, fertiliser hadn’t been put on it for years and it still produced a great crop of good green grass.”
The farm doesn’t have road frontage. However, this isn’t something to put anyone off. Access is very clear and well established, with a lane leading to the public road that has been used for at least the lifetime of the current owner.
“It’s a right-of-way access,” says Don. “There’s no dispute about it… the owner was born in that house so he’s been going up and down that lane for the last 90 years.”
The property does have some area aid entitlements, details of which can be obtained from the selling agents.
The holding is laid out in three fields and has a plentiful water supply and clearly defined boundaries, according to the agents.
So far, the interest has been brisk enough, according to Don. The property isn’t long on the market but interested parties have already been to inspect the holding:
“Yes, we’ve had a number of enquiries already from the Macroom area,” he says.
The quality of land in the Bandon-Newcestown area is well known and land doesn’t come up in this area very often.
The property has a price guide of €595,000 (€13,500/acre), making it a tempting prospect in an area where land prices have gone considerably higher in certain cases in the recent past.
The selling agent isn’t ruling out the possibility of a public auction if the interest is sufficient to warrant it. For now, it will be interesting to see what offers do materialise.
