Good Life living in East Cork: Period Ballynona Lodge with woodland gardens for sale

REMEMBER the charming 1970s British sitcom The Good Life, charting the move of a couple, Tom and Barbara Good, towards a life of self-sufficiency?

Well not only does a good life beckon at East Cork’s Ballynona Lodge, it clearly has provided a good innings and base for the couple who bought it 26 years ago.

Heck, their names were even on it from day one: Tom and Barbara Hassey.

Out-of-towners, the couple and parents of three fell instantly for this early 1800s home in a blissful woodland setting, on a south-east aspected slope a few kilometres east of Midleton and near Dungourney.

They bought it from a family who’d had it since the 1950s, and who had reared a family of 11 at this broadly accommodating home and its well-kept, highly attractive, 19th-century farm building cluster, with a fig tree in a sheltered courtyard (pic, above) by a lofted stone stables.

A long list of names has been associated with Ballynona Lodge over its 200 years of history: Catholic and Protestant, military and land-owning, likely to have been built originally by the Wigmore family who’d been in East Cork since the 17th century.

The Wigmores had started to beautify Ballynona South from the mid-1700s, planting thousands of trees for their pleasure, according to the late historian Richard Henchion, who charted many of the families who ‘made’ Midleton: in fact,a picture of Ballynona Lodge is one of the colour plates in one of several historical books the diligent Mr Henchion researched for the Cloyne Literary and Historical Society.

The family had owned the original Ballynona House, and various estate lodges and cottages, with the Wigmore name recalled of late, as the replacement 1890s Ballynona House came for sale (guiding €950,000 on five acres) and Ballynona Cottage ( a pretty “cottage orné”), which recently got a price drop to €795,000; both are on several acres of ground and hold rustic, rooted rural life promises.

This third Ballynona market arrival, in rude good health, after more the a quarter century in the hands of Tom and Barbara Hassey is listed with Midleton estate agent Adrianna Hegarty, who guides it at €585,000, making it attractive to a broader reach of good life home hunters.

Ms Hegarty has fallen for its understated but undoubted charms and upgraded comforts, with a navy Aga in a cosy kitchen next to a quirky corner-set old bread proving oven.

“Ballynona Lodge offers a truly unique way of living for those seeking tranquillity, comfort, and a touch of nostalgia,” she enthuses.

It wasn’t always carrying this name.

“It was originally called Ballynona Cottage, but a previous owner who moved into it couldn’t bring himself to say he lived in a cottage, so he change its name to ‘lodge’,” says vendor Barbara Hassey with a smile.

Both she and Tom loved and curated the gardens here, creating paths, bowers, seating areas dotted around the 2.5 acres and perimeter, encompassing yard with capacious old stone building and barn, veg beds, orchard, flower borders, all enhanced by old trees — from Scots pines to holm oaks and more. they combine to grant utter privacy to this home on a hill, mid-way along its 400m-long, truly leafy avenue, with entrances at either end to a quiet country road leading back towards Midleton via the Bilberry Estate. The N25 main East Cork “highway” is a few miles away to the south.

It’s trade down time now for Dublin-born Barbara, who had trained and worked in fashion design in Sunbeam, and, in later years, oversaw the Friends of the Crawford Gallery programme in her adopted Cork City.

Her eye for art and design is evident in the abundant array of paintings and prints in her home.

She is selling up now after Tom (who’d worked as an accountant) passed away in 2023, and has already bought near Midleton, finishing up doing energy upgrades to her next home and smaller garden. Barbara’s not leaving East Cork, she affirms, whilst accepting that parting with Ballynona Lodge is a wrench.

Lucky whomever gets to buy it, though, as it’s one of those rare buys of period property that is very easily managed, in great condition, never over-restored but still well-invested in, so that any further spend should be discretionary, while the maturity of the woodland and garden is a boon — enough to do to provide joy, but not so much that it’s a burden.

And, oh, that courtyard behind, with one of the lodge’s two glasshouses, its field-fed trough, the Hasseys’ two lolling dogs Rollo and Myrtle navigating the steps up to it (one wall has traditionally been whitewashed for a touch of Crete on sunny day) the old stone barn and buildings, roofed and dry, with masses of storage and holding timber from the land for years’ worth of stove use to keep the home fires burning.

Inside, the main drawing room to the left with broad internal arch has a wood-burning stove in a pitch pine surround, with coved ceiling, and deep-set window in a front wall several feet thick.

A dining room across the hall has an original — or at least quite grand — white marble fireplace with an open fire in a cast iron surround, a gleaming old pine floor, and a door to the side leads to a home office with a further marble chimneypiece.

Every room has character (all the paintings and art help), and the cheery hall with yellow walls above a dado and wainscoting lead to a country style kitchen, paint in buttery creams with robust units under solid timber worktops. Recipe books abound, and the navy Aga has worked for its living, while a small bread oven or proving oven is off to the side as a reminder of this home’s long history.

Also at ground is a store/utility with shelving for wines (a van run to France for vin, via the N25 and Rosslare ferry anyone?), a bedroom or space for other uses, a guest WC and a sewing room/art room/ den.

A mid-ships staircase with slender spindles gently leads to a first floor with four bedrooms — one with en suite bathroom, the other with a lovely stone fireplace — laid out off two landings.

Two can interconnect, with one to the rear able to have its own rear landing, while the main bathroom has both a bath and shower.

Rooms with individual shapes all have reminders (such as the wide doorcases downstairs) that this is a home that has evolved over the best part of two centuries, but is in great nick.

VERDICT: So much to like at the well-minded and much-loved Ballynona Lodge. Then, on top of all of its elements, it’s even more than the sum of its parts — an under-stated beauty for some appreciative buyer who’ll add their own chapter to its Good Life lore.