20 Ann Street, Gilford, Craigavon, County Down, BT63 6HX

20 Ann Street is a two-bay, two-storey mid-terrace house built around 1840–1850, situated on the main road through Gilford, east of Gilford Mill and north of the town centre. It forms part of a terrace of 25 dwellings on Ann Street (excluding the gatehouse at No. 1 Ann Street), and was originally constructed as part of a back-to-back housing complex built by the proprietors of the adjacent linen thread spinning mill.

The house is square on plan, with a modern two-storey flat-roofed return to the rear. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles. There is a rendered chimneystack with clay pots. Rainwater goods are cast-iron half-round to the front and uPVC to the rear. External walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render. Windows throughout are replacement uPVC, with the exception of a timber casement to the rear; all windows have projecting masonry sills.

The principal elevation faces east. At ground-floor level there is a half-panelled timber door with a square-headed overlight to the right, and a window to the left; at first-floor level there is a single window to the centre. The south elevation abuts the adjoining building. To the west (rear), there is a first-floor window to the right; the modern flat-roofed two-storey return at the left incorporates a timber-sheeted door enclosing the rear yard, with a window to each floor; the left and right cheeks of this return were not viewed during inspection. The north elevation abuts the adjoining building on that side. Vehicular access is available to the rear, and the site is bounded toward the mill by mature trees.

The house was originally one of a back-to-back pair. Numbers 9 to 26 of the terrace fronted onto High Street, while a corresponding rear row — known as Bann Street — shared the back wall and faced toward the linen mill. The two rows are shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, labelled "High Street" and "Bann St[reet]", and appear in an illustration of the mill said to date from around 1841. In 1915–16, most of the Bann Street houses were incorporated into the corresponding High Street houses, though six remained standing until the 1930s. The specific rear unit associated with this house was incorporated into the front dwelling in 1916, at which point the combined property was revalued at £4.10s with a weekly rent of 3s.3d.

The mill itself was established by Hugh Dunbar, the descendant of a linen-manufacturing family. In 1834, facing competition from the new wet-spinning process, Dunbar resolved to build a spinning mill and chose Gilford as his base. He entered into partnership with William Agnew Stewart and Robert Thompson to raise the necessary capital, acquiring land from Hugh Law of Woodbank, with the mill's tail race running through the land of James Uprichard of Bannvale. The mill opened in 1839 under the name Dunbar and Thompson (Stewart having died in 1837) and was an immediate commercial success. The business later traded as Dunbar McMaster & Co. Ltd.

The mill's rapid growth transformed Gilford: the population more than quadrupled between 1841 and 1851, rising from 643 to 2,814. By 1870 the mill employed over 2,000 workers, and the company built around 200 houses between 1836 and 1862. All mill-owned houses were inspected monthly, and were annually lime-washed, painted and repaired at the company's expense. Griffith's Valuation of 1863 records the terrace as the property of Dunbar McMaster & Co.; the High Street houses were each valued at £2.10s and described as two storeys, 15 feet long and 12 feet wide, though rated "deteriorated by age and not in good repair" — indicating they had already been standing for some time. The Bann Street houses were valued slightly lower at £2.5s, despite being the same dimensions.

The back-to-back houses have been described as "the most basic units available, having only two rooms with single windows at each floor," providing rather cramped living space for more than four occupants. The absence of rear doors and windows reduced ventilation, though this was considered less critical on an open site with good air circulation. They were regarded as adequate for single persons or smaller households, and represented a significant improvement over the poorer type of rural dwellings of the period. Despite their modest size, it was not uncommon for families of four or more to occupy them, and valuation and census records show considerable mobility among tenants, many of whom lived at two or more addresses within the terrace over the years.

The first recorded tenants of the unit now known as No. 20 (formerly No. 21) were Charles Kernahan on the High Street side and Richard Sheeky on the Bann Street side. Subsequent recorded tenants include Ellen Morrison (1902), E. McAnerney (1903), Robert Bell (1904), and Erwin Battie (1907). The 1901 census records Ellen Morrison, a 75-year-old spinner at the thread factory, as occupier of the High Street house, sharing it with a female boarder also employed at the factory. The Bann Street house was at that time occupied by Elizabeth McAtassney, a widowed mill worker living with her 16-year-old daughter (a spinner) and a four-year-old son. By 1911, the occupier was James Clayton, a mill labourer, living with his wife who worked as a winder; the Bann Street side was vacant at the time of that census. Later recorded occupants following the 1916 amalgamation include Lizzie Morrow (date unknown) and Martha Symington (1921).

In 1879, following the imposition of a high import tax on linen thread in the United States, Hugh Dunbar McMaster established a mill in Greenwich Village, New York, bringing workers and machinery from Ireland and installing his brother John as manager. The resulting emigration of workers had a marked effect on Gilford's population, which halved between 1871 and 1881. Despite this, the company continued to prosper and gained 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 owners maintained a paternalistic involvement in the life of the town throughout much of the 20th century, but a decline in the Ulster linen industry eventually led to the mill's closure in the early 1980s.

The building retains its use as a dwelling. It has undergone extensive alteration over the years and little historic fabric now remains. While of local interest as part of an early example of mill workers' housing associated with Gilford Mill, it is not among the best-preserved examples of the type. Its architectural and historic interest has been significantly reduced by these alterations, and it was removed from the statutory list on 1 November 2013.