3 Ann Street, Gilford, Craigavon, Co Down, BT63 6HX

3 Ann Street is a two-bay, two-storey mid-terrace house built around 1840, situated on the east side of Gilford Mill in the townland of Loughans, to the north-west of Gilford town centre. It forms part of a terrace of 25 dwellings on Ann Street (excluding the gate lodge at No. 1) and is of particular interest for its close relationship with the adjacent linen thread spinning mill and as a surviving example of mill workers' housing in the town. Although the terrace as a whole has been altered over the years — which reduces something of its collective interest — this section remains a good example of the type, and its location and relationship to the mill and its setting retain considerable value.

The building is rectangular on plan with a single-storey flat-roof extension to the rear, which was not viewed during inspection. The pitched roof is finished in natural slate with angled ridge tiles and a rendered chimney stack. Rainwater goods are uPVC. The external walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render. Windows throughout are replacement uPVC units set in projecting masonry sills.

The principal elevation faces east and is two openings wide. At ground-floor level to the left is a modern four-panelled timber door. The west elevation abuts the adjoining property. The north (rear) elevation has two first-floor windows — the one to the right has a raised sill — a replacement timber door at ground-floor left with a window immediately to its left, and the flat-roof extension abutted to the right. The east elevation abuts the neighbouring building to that side.

A photograph dating from 1900 records the original fenestration: 3-over-6 sliding sash windows at first-floor level and 6-over-6 sliding sash windows at ground-floor level, with a solid timber door surmounted by a transom window. These have since been replaced with the current uPVC units.

The house was built by the proprietors of Gilford Mill, a linen thread spinning mill that was largely responsible for the rapid growth and prosperity of Gilford throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The mill was established by Hugh Dunbar, descendant of a linen-manufacturing family whose grandfather had leased property at Huntley from the Whytes of Loughbrickland, where Hugh produced thread and employed hand-loom weavers in linen cloth production. By 1834, competition from mill-spun yarns produced by the new wet-spinning process compelled Dunbar to establish his own spinning mill. He chose Gilford for the purpose and entered into partnership with William Agnew Stewart and Robert Thompson to raise the necessary capital. Land was obtained from Hugh Law of Woodbank for the mill itself, and the tail race ran through land belonging to James Uprichard of Bannvale. The mill opened in 1839 trading as Dunbar and Thompson, Stewart having died in 1837. It was an immediate commercial success and drew large numbers of workers to the town.

A view of the mill said to date from around 1841, shortly after its completion, shows the terrace and the current building. The terrace is first recorded on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, captioned "Ann Street". Hugh Dunbar took his responsibilities as an employer seriously: the mill provided a medical attendant and a school, and Dunbar began building housing for his workforce almost immediately as the town's population grew with extraordinary speed. Between 1841 and 1851 the population more than quadrupled, from 643 to 2,814. By 1870 the mill was employing over 2,000 workers, and between 1836 and 1862 the company built 200 houses. All mill-owned properties were inspected monthly, and were annually lime-washed, painted and repaired at the firm's expense.

The terrace is listed in Griffith's Valuation of 1863. The houses on Ann Street varied in valuation from £5 to £10 and were generally larger than other company-built housing in the town, suggesting they may have been intended for mill supervisors. They were rated at the time as "slightly decayed but in repair". The first recorded resident of No. 3 was James Davison, whose two-storey house measured 5¾ yards by 7¾ yards, was leased from Dunbar McMaster & Co, and was valued at £5. A tenant identified as Middleton paid a weekly rent of two shillings and sixpence — a sum that can be set against the average workman's wage of 15 shillings per week and an average weekly family wage of 36 shillings in 1869. Subsequent occupants included Thomas Anderson or Adamson (1878) and Robert McBurney (1899). The 1901 census records English-born widow Harriet Henderson living at the property with her daughters aged 19 and 14, born in Jersey and England respectively, who worked as a thread spooler and thread worker. Harriet herself was not employed and supplemented her income with a boarder who was a printer lithographer. By the time of the 1911 census, Harriet Henderson remained in the house with her two daughters — the elder now widowed — her two grandchildren, and a new boarder who was a preparing master at the mill.

In 1879, following the imposition of very high import taxes on linen thread in the United States, Hugh Dunbar McMaster established a mill in Greenwich Village, New York, bringing over workers and machinery from Ireland and installing his brother John as manager. The resulting emigration had a severe effect on Gilford's population, which halved between 1871 and 1881. The company nonetheless continued to thrive and achieved a worldwide reputation. The British Trade Journal of 1890 reported that the firm exported "twine for salmon fishing to British Columbia, carpet threads, book-binder's threads, extra strong threads for leather and thick cloths and fine threads for the sewing-machinist and lace maker...to the United States, South and Central America, Brazil, Australia and the rest of the British Colonies." The mill's owners maintained a paternalistic interest in their workers and in the life of the town well into the 20th century. A decline in the Ulster linen industry eventually led to the mill's closure in the early 1980s.

The building continues in use as a dwelling.