Glebe House was the home of Ireland’s representative to Italy, Denmark, Sweden and China
Asking price: €750,000 (AMV)
Agent: Quinn Property (053) 9480000
Dermot Waldron was a skilled diplomat who served as Ireland’s ambassador to Italy, Denmark, Sweden and China over a successful career spanning decades. But His Excellency was also as talented at gardening as he was cultivating international relationships, and he has left a living legacy to prove it.
As a keen amateur gardener after his retirement in 1991, Waldron tended to the grounds surrounding Glebe House, his early 19th century home at Woodenbridge in Co Wicklow.
Doors to the garden at Glebe House
Glebe House is a four-bedroom detached home built in 1828 as a rectory, sitting on approximately 42 acres at the point where the River Aughrim meets the Avoca at the ‘Meeting of the Waters’.
Thanks to Waldron Snr’s vast collection of plants and trees from all over the globe, the garden even featured in the The Irish Garden magazine. As he moved between postings, he brought back both knowledge and whatever plants were allowable.
“That’s why there are so many different types of plants from all over the world,” says Dermot Waldron Jr.
“Once he retired he spent all his time in the garden. It kept him going, and kept my mum (Britt) going as well.”
Waldron Snr had qualified as a barrister before entering the diplomatic service. His son recalls him saying that if he hadn’t been a diplomat, he would have been either a gardener or a birdwatcher.
With cuckoos, woodpeckers, herons and pheasants in abundance on the land, he managed to combine both in retirement. During the hunting season, he could reliably be found chasing unwanted gun-toters off the land with a stick, in order to protect the pheasants.
Kitchen at Glebe House
The garden he created over more than three decades is described in The Irish Garden as a “comforting cocoon of mixed woodland”.
A happy accident of topography sees the plot sheltered by a steep bank of mixed oak, ash, cherry and hornbeam that rise behind the house toward the crest of the hill, shielding it from the south-westerlies that can howl down the Vale of Aughrim.
According to the magazine, Waldron Snr’s years in Rome inspired a particular love of azaleas.
He recalled pots being brought out each Easter to decorate the Piazza di Spagna in that city, while from his Beijing posting, he brought back a taste for Chinese garden ornaments, including two granite ones that peer out from foliage near the house, and a stone pagoda ornament set beside a water cascade.
He also installed a stream that flows from a rocky outcrop and passes through stepping stones and pools. He called this ‘the Kwai’, in reference to his favourite war movie.
Dermot Waldron Jr says selling carries an obvious weight but ‘it is time to move on’
The garden descends from the house in three terraced stages, with banking and levels that date to the property’s Victorian origins.
Roses soak up the heat on the tangerine-coloured walls of the house, says the article, which lists climbing ‘Lady Hillingdon’, with amber-coloured flowers to match the house’s cheerful orange paintwork.
Among the old roses are the Duchess of Portland’s rose, lemon-scented white damask ‘Mme Hardy’, pink climber ‘Gloire de Dijon’ and the pink cabbage rose ‘Fantin Latour’.
The main lawn is encircled with a variety of magnolias and a grove of silver birch, laurel and ornamental trees. Beyond the lawn, woodland paths wind through mature trees and offer changing views across the Wicklow valley.
The hall and stairs at Glebe House
“And Woodenbridge itself is a kind of tropical oasis,” says Waldron Jnr. “Everything seems to flourish here with abundance.” The River Aughrim borders the property.
The house has an entrance hall with granite slab flooring and a double door with stained-glass windows. Off this, the main reception rooms open to either side – the drawing room, dining room and kitchen on one side and a bedroom and living room on the other. A boot room, bathroom and rear porch complete the ground floor, with both the boot room and rear porch having access to an internal courtyard.
The drawing room has French doors leading to the rear garden as does the dining room. “If you’re sitting in one of those rooms looking out over the gardens at any stage, you can see the wildlife,” says Waldron Jr, who works in hospitality in the UK. “Birds and pheasants will come up to the door and practically eat out of your hands.”
A reception room at the Glebe House
The kitchen has fitted units at waist and eye level along with a dishwasher and electric cooker. A hallway with stairs leads to the first floor, where three further bedrooms are arranged around a landing. One has a vaulted ceiling, fitted wardrobe and dual aspect windows. Another has an en suite, and there is also a family bathroom.
Below the ground floor, a basement adds practical space including a utility room with hot press, a pantry with shelving, a games room with tiled flooring and a fireplace, a store room and a wine cellar.
A single storey wing at Glebe House
Woodenbridge is a small village in east Wicklow, about 7.5km from Arklow. Avoca is a 10-minute drive and the Woodenbridge Hotel and Golf Course is adjacent to the property.
Waldron Jr is keen to emphasise that despite its idyllic setting, the house is genuinely commutable: “It’s not ‘in the wilds of nowhere’. It’s near Arklow. Dublin is only about an hour, and it’s still commutable as a location.”
Waldron Snr’s wife Britt is now in a nursing home and, for their son Waldron Jr, selling carries an obvious weight.
“It’s been an emotional attachment for all of us,” he says. “But it’s time to move on. We need someone else to have the joy of it.” Glebe House goes to auction on Tuesday May 19.
Quinn Property seeks €750,000 (AMV).
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