Temple House

The anticipation builds as you follow a half-mile drive through sheep-grazed pastures to Roderick and Helena Perceval’s 18th-century classical mansion, remodelled in 1864. In an age when Capability Brown was laying out parkland for English aristocrats, complete with picturesque ruin, the Percevals had the real thing: a crumbling Knights Templar castle, which stands beside a mile-long lake, beyond Italianate terraced gardens. Grand though it might be, this is a family home, filled with antiques and ancestral portraits. ‘Twins’ bedroom has matching half-tester beds. Dual-aspect ‘Half Acre’ is simply vast. ‘Maple’ has the original furniture from 1864, ‘Porch’ a 14-foot wardrobe. At night, children enjoy a kitchen supper, before adult guests gather in the morning room for drinks, then sit down in a house-party atmosphere to a four-course dinner that will include such choices as Andrala Farm pork belly, with scallops, and cod with a tempura oyster, trout caviar, cauliflower purée and nori beurre blanc. Breakfast brings Irish apple juice, compote of rhubarb from the walled garden, home-made soda bread and a full Irish.