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Grave expectations: home with own cemetery for sale

A disused Co Westmeath church with a graveyard in the front garden is being marketed as a family home and has attracted a number of prospective buyers.

Jennifer Bray reports

Bury good property: St John's church in Clonmellon, Co Westmeath is 'a very different addition to the property market'

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The Addams family would have loved it – a home with a graveyard in the front garden. Now a Westmeath estate agent is to test if Irish families feel the same by offering a disused church as a home for just €100,000. St John's in Clonmellon is almost 300 years old and is in need of renovation. It also requires buyers who are not squeamish about living in close proximity to the dead.

"The site boundary is very tight and hugs the property on all sides, because there is a graveyard beyond the boundary line," said Cara Gavigan, from T & J Gavigan Real Estate Alliance. "So the front garden is basically the graveyard and that seems to have been putting families off to a certain degree. There is currently a right-of-way to the graveyard for the relatives of those who are buried there as well".

The gravestones date from the late- 1700s, when the church was built, to 1995, when the last burial took place. The roof was recently restored and the property still retains many of its original architectural features externally.

The church would make an ideal studio or workshop space, according to the estate agent, and it also has full planning permission for a three-storey extension.

"It has a lot of potential and it is the first time we have ever put a property like this on the market or seen a church go on sale to the public. We are seeing that, for the most part, the type of people who are enquiring are people who are interested in renovation and old buildings, but having said that, we have also had a lot of couples viewing the property," said Gavigan.

There is currently no planning permission to demolish or extensively change the church itself, although an application has been made to Westmeath County Council to allow for a possible revamp.

The current vendor is understood to have bought the property from the Church of Ireland 10 years ago, and it is understood to have held its final service in 1990.

There are currently a number of prospective buyers, with the highest bid standing at €80,000.

"Interest is pretty high at the moment and we are confident of a sale over the next few weeks. We haven't had an offer of the €100,000 we were originally looking for, but that could change. It is, after all, a very different addition to the property market," said Gavigan.