Ballysteen House, Ballysteen, Askeaton, Co. Limerick for sale in June 2025 courtesy Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty
€1,300,000 V94 T62T 6 beds2 baths673 m2
An extremely pleasant and attractive late Georgian historic country house, built circa 1780 on the site of the earlier Ballysteen Castle within an extremely quiet and private estate extending to nearly 100-acres. Accommodation extends to some 7244 square feet or 673 square metres and includes 6 principal bedrooms. Home to the Westropp family since 1703 the estate is an extremely rare and unique example of quintessential gentry charm, with the features of the core-estate and late Georgian house largely intact and of considerable merit. A long circa .4 mile (.7 km) gravelled drive leads through well-timbered parkland to open onto a parking forecourt in front of Ballysteen House, or branching off into the stable and garaging courtyard. Architecturally the house is magnificent and retains the majority of the original features. Nearby Ballysteen village is a 2-minute drive, Askeaton town just an 8-minute drive and Limerick city a 30-minute drive. The large solid timber front door, set between carved timber pilasters below an overhead arched fanlight window, opens into a large reception hall with decorative ceiling cornices and a central rose and a marble chimneypiece. It links to the stair hall, dining room, drawing room and family room. The dining room has matching alcoves to each end, a marble chimneypiece with a wood stove insert and two large west facing windows. For dining it can seat 12 comfortably. The drawing room again has two large west facing windows and has a marble chimneypiece. The family room, originally likely a library, also faces west with two large windows and a marble chimneypiece. The principal receptions rooms are each grand with generous proportions, high ceilings (circa 14 feet) fine chimneypieces and ornate ceiling plasterwork combined create to allow for opulent entertaining but are contained enough to be extremely comfortable for private or family use. The family room has a lower ceiling height, circa 10.5 feet, giving it a snug feel and especially in winter with a lighting open fire. The stair hall connects to the dining room, reception hall and an inner hall, itself linking to the kitchen, pantries and sculleries and a link hall to an annexe apartment. Internally, the house benefits from little change since being first completed (circa 1809) so that the majority of the original features remain intact. Including, original timber sash windows (front façade), window shutters, ceiling cornices and decorative plasterwork, picture rails, timber flooring boards, timber doors and architraves, a fine dog-leg carved timber staircase and some original chimney pieces. Restoration is required, although structurally the main house seems in commendable condition. The original layout configuration of the principal reception rooms works well for contemporary living, aside from the kitchen that is largely original. Upstairs the larger principal rooms are paired with adjacent interconnecting small bedrooms or dressing rooms and creating bedrooms suites with integral bathrooms seems highly possible. The current configuration provides 6 bedrooms and a playroom on the first floor. The bathroom accessed on the mezzanine floor, off the staircase return. Two old staff bedrooms are accessed from the first floor or a secondary staircase in the kitchen. The adjacent and linked annexe apartment requires complete restoration. A gate lodge is now derelict but could provide further accommodation. The west façade or the back of the house has a pleasant enclosed formal garden space and includes a marvellous dovecote tower folly. An internal farm lane is sucken to ensure an unobstructed view. Similarly, at the front of the house, the telegraph lines have been placed underground. The adjacent courtyard has a coach house, stable block and a large barn and leads to an outer enclosed yard and orchard garden. Again much original integrity survives but restoration is required. For equestrians the layout is ideal with linked grazing. For boating enthusiasts Ballysteen Quay, accessing the Shannon Estuary is just a 5-minute drive. Limerick city is a 30 minute drive, Cork city a 1 hr 30 minute drive and Dublin city is a 2 hr 30 minute drive. Shannon International Airport 42 minutes driving (short flight path by helicopter), Cork International Airport 1 hr 45 minutes driving, Dublin International Airport 2 hr 20 minutes driving. For further information contact Selling Agents Eileen Neville and David Ashmore.
https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/21901101/ballysteen-house-ballysteen-co-limerick
Detached five-bay two-storey county house, built c. 1780, with additions to north and south. Square-headed window openings with six-over-six timber sash windows and stone sills. Blind six-over-six timber sash window to ground floor. Round-headed door opening with timber panelled door and fanlight with engaged Tuscan columns. Hipped slate roof. Two-bay two-storey addition to south with timber sash window and square-headed door opening with timber door and margin lights. Two-bay two-storey addition to north with pitched slate roof. Rear with six-over-six timber sash and two-over-two timber sash windows. Outbuildings to rear.
Appraisal
Ballysteen House is of considerable architectural importance within the history of County Limerick. A significant number of features remain intact which adds to the house’s architectural wealth. A curious feature which remains which adds to the house’s history is the blind window on the ground floor. The retetion of timber panelled door and the columns adds further to the merit of this outstanding house.
https://theirishaesthete.com/2025/10/06/ballysteen/
Something of a Rarity
Originally from Yorkshire, in 1657 Montifort Westropp settled in Limerick city and three years later was comptroller of the port there. Subsequently he purchased various parcels of land in Co. Clare where he held the office of High Sheriff in 1674 and 1690, as well as being appointed a Commissioner for the county by an Act of Irish Parliament in 1697. Following his death the following year, several of his sons continued to prosper: one son, also called Montifort – a forebear of the antiquarian Thomas Johnson Westropp – purchased the Attyflin estate near Patrickswell, County Limerick from the Chichester House Commissioners in 1703, and the same year, another son, Thomas Westropp bought an estate in the same county at Ballysteen. Some kind of castle or tower house evidently stood here, but it was replaced by the present building in the last quarter of the 18th century, perhaps by the original Thomas’s grandson (also called Thomas) who died in 1789.
Following Thomas Westropp’s death in 1789, the Ballysteen estate was inherited by his only surviving son, General John Westropp. However, when he died in 1825 without issue, Ballysteen reverted to one of the children of his sister Sara who in 1775 had married Colonel Thomas Odell of Ballingarry, County Limerick. The couple’s third son, Edmond, duly inherited his uncle’s estate and changed his name to Westropp. His grandson Edward also had no son but two daughters, one of whom, Elizabeth, in 1942 married Maurice Talbot, son of the Dean of Cashel and himself, from 1954, Dean of Limerick. Ballysteen was in due course inherited by the present generation of the family who have, for the first time in its history, offered the property for sale.
As seen today, Ballysteen is a two-storey, five-bay house, with east-facing rendered facade and a west-facing, four-bay garden front, as well as lower two-storey wings on either side of the main block. Internally, the house appears to have been last undergone alterations around 1820, or perhaps soon after 1825 when it was inherited by Edmond Odell Westropp. To the front, much of the space is taken up by a substantial, three-bay entrance hall, with the staircase in an adjacent area to the immediate north. Behind the entrance are the two principal reception rooms, drawing and dining, and all three have white marble chimneypieces typical of the late-18th/early 19th century. They also retain some mahogany furniture from the same period: the dining room, for example, has a pair of arched niches each of which holds an identical buffet with slender spiral twist legs, while the entrance hall has a pair of bookcases with similar decorative detail, suggesting they all came from the same workshop at the same time. A sitting room/library is accommodated in the south wing while the kitchen, pantry, scullery and so forth, together with the service staircase, can be found in its northern equivalent. Upstairs are six bedrooms, some with dressing rooms. Thanks to being left unaltered for so long, Ballysteen retains the appearance and character of an Irish country house once widespread but today something of a rarity. One must hope that whoever is fortunate to acquire the property, while updating some of the facilities, retains that wonderful character. It is too precious to lose.
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