This urban gate lodge is on 0.8 of an acre, five minutes from the village, and worth a look.
Address: Forest Lodge, 31 Mill Lane, Leixlip, Co Kildare, W23 W7P2
Asking price: €650,000
Agent: Coonan Property
Behind these gates is a pretty little detached gate lodge that gives you privacy while having amenities on your doorstep. Leixlip village centre is a five-minute walk.
It also has a somewhat tenuous link to the lesser-known part of the house of Guinness story. The part that explains that the world-famous brewery at St. James Gate in Dublin 8 was not the first place to carry Arthur Guinness’ name.
Before St. James’ Gate existed and using an inheritance from his godfather Arthur Guinness bought a lease on a brewery in Leixlip that dates from 13th September, 1756.
A copy of the original lease is displayed in the Court Yard Hotel, the site of this ale-making brewery, which had a view of Leixlip Castle, latterly owned by the Guinness family.
The brewery site was appropriately named Castleview. Its mill race extended down to a mill, and some of these buildings still exist today at the end of Mill Lane.
Part of the mill race is also still visible.
In 1759, Arthur left the Leixlip brewery to his brother Richard and acquired the St. James’s Gate lease in Dublin.
He turned his attention to porter, and the rest is history.
Downstream from Castletown House and Leixlip Castle, almost the end of the mill race, Forest Lodge was once the gate lodge to Marshfield House, a pretty Queen Anne-style property that was built by an innkeeper and whose lawns run down to the banks of the Liffey.
A two-bedroom, two-bathroom property, it extends to about 92 square metres.
But it is its surroundings and outbuildings that should pique the interest of those who want to live centrally but channel nature and some big house bragging rights, whilst living in the centre of the heritage village.
Set on 0.8 of an acre, it is accessed from Mill Lane through stone gated piers.
It has mature trees, some granite boundary walls, and abounds The Black Avenue to the south, although presently there is no physical entrance on this side of the property.
The next owner should install pedestrian access across the road is St Catherine’s Park, 200 acres of woodland and grassland, with the river Liffey running through it.
It also links Leixlip to Lucan and is home to the Liffey Descent canoe race.
Any future owner who fancies kayaking or SUP will only have a round trip of about 500 metres to get to the water and back.
The cut stone-fronted house has a striking living room with a vaulted ceiling and exposed timber beams.
The kitchen is centred around a four-door Aga.
The layout may need a little reworking.
The second bedroom is off the living room.
The principal bedroom is housed in the flat-roofed extension to the rear.
It has an ensuite, and there is another room off it.
There are long, narrow stone outbuildings that extend to about a further 92 square metres, and there is also a double garage, a timber structure, that adds another 65 square metres of potential space.
The house is single-storey, but there is scope to incorporate the stone buildings into the layout and extend its footprint and size.
There is also some development potential, but it should be noted that the site slopes up to The Black Avenue
Coonan Property is seeking €650,000 for the Ber-exempt property.