Hollywood scriptwriter puts his gate lodge on the market for €350,000

Asking price: €350,000

Agent: Savills (01) 6181300​

George Bernard Shaw had a garden hut called ‘London’. Set on castors, he could rotate it to change the view.

If anyone phoned the main house, they were informed (honestly) that “he’s gone to London”.

Roald Dahl had a garden shed with an armchair, a flask, a plank to write on and piece of his own hip bone set on a table nearby.

JK Rowling has a purpose-built detached writer’s room in her garden and Neil Gaiman scribbles inside an octagonal wooden gazebo. Writers love a separate place to go when they want to work, that is both detached from their house, but also close to it.

For his part, the Kansas -based award-winning playwright and screenwriter Brock Norman Brock goes to Louth when he writes.

More specifically, to his customised period gate lodge Marlay at Grangebellew. And more specifically again, to his corrugated custom-built writer’s room out back.

Brock first came to prominence as a playwright with Here is Monster (1990), directed by Mark Ravenhill. He worked as a film executive before turning to screenwriting.

The flamboyant writer is known for his work on movies like Bronson, The Mustang and Yardie.

From his time “on the dark side”, he also has production credits for Gosford Park and The Constant Gardener. Television credits include the recent adaptation of Jake Chapman’s book The Marriage of Reason and Squalor.

More recently, he was appointed a professor of film at the University of Nevada, where he plans to take life a bit easier.

So while most of us head to the sticks when we want to take our foot off the gas, Brock is about to sell his retreat in the sleepy Louth rurals to move with partner Jade Bailey to Vegas. He does see the irony.

“I will be doing some teaching, but for the most part, I’ll be writing there, but with a patron.”

Filming will start on one of his most recent projects next year, which happens to be set in Ireland.

“I’d describe it as a sort of occult/crime/horror/thriller in the Louth border area.” An international cast is expected.

Born in Ohio and a long-time UK resident, Brock’s connection with Ireland came with marriage — his ex-wife is from Louth — and when their relationship ended, he sought a base close to his children as well as a writer’s pad in which to work.

“So it’s sort of a post-familial home, you could say. I bought it in 2011. A bachelor had previously lived all his life here without plumbing or running water.

“Apparently, he was always immaculately dressed. I liked the idea that I would become the latest eccentric old man to live here,” he says.

“My adult children, who are now based in London, have stayed here at various points through the years.

“Marlay was the gate lodge to Rokeby Hall, designed by Francis Johnson. It was single storey initially, but they added a floor when the railway came through and the road was raised.”

The ground floor dates from 1780, while the upstairs came in the early 19th century.

“I sort of fell in love with it straight away. When I bought it, the house was semi-derelict, but it still had his tea towels hanging in front of the fire. I wanted to keep part of that.

“So while I had it extended and modernised and my writer’s room added in the garden, I left the walls in the old part of the house pretty much as they were with the original lime render. I also kept some of his religious pictures and his books.

“I engaged a friend of mine from London as the architect because the house is protected. I made sure the modern additions were linked by glass channels, so the original house still maintains its separate context.”

His writing room, located 8ft from the main house, overlooks the rural lane and ditches through vast floor-to-ceiling glazed doors.

The walls and ceiling are panelled in marine ply. His robust writing table is propped up on bricks (“I bought a chair that was too tall for the table”).

Elsewhere in the room is a short chez long and a mountain of books stacked on the floor. “I like to be surrounded by my books.”

When writing Bronson, Brock would engage in a written correspondence with Britain’s most dangerous prisoner. “Charlie used to write me with guidance about his story and send me his drawings and so forth. I think he was happy that his story was being told.”

But there were downsides. “Yes, he used to write things like: when I get out, I’m going to come and live with you.

“I think I’ve done my best work here at Marlay. I wrote all of The Mustang here.” The acclaimed 2019 movie was the directorial debut of Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre.

The property has 1,461 sq ft of floor space, with the 213 sq ft writing room/studio on a site of almost half an acre with a stream running alongside.

“The gentleman who used to live here would wash in the stream,” adds Brock, who says he has “paddled but not bathed”. A wood/fuel store is accessed from the side of the house.

Front access is via stone steps to the front entrances and a Georgian door. From there, you go into the sitting room.

There are also two bedrooms on this floor. The lower ground level includes another reception room, an open-plan kitchen and dining room, a third bedroom and a bathroom. The sitting room here features bi-fold glass doors.

Features include underfloor heating (ground floor), a hipped slate roof and sash windows.

Marlay is situated just over a mile from the village of Dunleer, halfway between Dundalk and Drogheda, with the beach at Clogherhead six miles distant. Savills seeks €350,000.

Meantime, Charlie Bronson’s last parole hearing of March 2023 concluded that he “is not suitable for release”.