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

5 Ann Street is a mid-terrace house of around 1840, situated at the east entrance to Gilford Mill on Ann Street, Gilford, forming part of a terrace of 25 dwellings (excluding the gatelodge at No. 1 Ann Street). Its principal interest lies in its close relationship with the adjacent linen thread spinning mill and as a surviving example of mill workers' housing in the town. Although all eight houses in this section of the terrace have been altered over the years — which diminishes the interest of the group as a whole — their location and relationship to the mill and its setting remain significant, and together this section of the terrace represents a good example of the type.

The house is two bays wide and two storeys tall, rectangular on plan, with two-storey and single-storey gabled extensions to the rear. The roof is pitched natural slate with angled ridge tiles and a rendered chimney stack. Rainwater goods are uPVC. External walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render. Windows are replacement 1/1 timber sliding sash units with projecting masonry sills; timber casements are used to the rear.

The principal elevation faces east and is two openings wide, with a modern six-panelled timber door to the left at ground floor level. The west elevation is abutted by the adjoining building. The rear (north) elevation is entirely abutted by a gabled return, which has two windows to the first floor and one window to the ground floor left; a further gabled extension abuts it to the right. The gable of this extension has a modern timber door to the left and a window to the right, with a single window to the left cheek; the right cheek was not viewed. The east elevation is abutted by the adjoining building to the other side.

A view of the mill said to date from around 1841, shortly after its completion, shows the terrace including this building. The terrace first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, captioned "Ann Street". A photograph of 1900 records the original fenestration: 3/6 sliding sash windows to the first floor and 6/6 to the ground floor, with a solid timber door surmounted by a transom window.

The terrace was built by the proprietors of the adjacent linen thread spinning mill, originally known as Dunbar and Thompson and later trading as Dunbar McMaster & Co Ltd. The mill was the creation of Hugh Dunbar, descended from a linen family whose grandfather had leased a property at Huntley from the Whytes of Loughbrickland, where Hugh was manufacturing thread and his hand-loom weavers produced linen cloth. By 1834, competition from mill-spun yarns produced by the new wet-spinning process compelled Dunbar to establish his own spinning mill or face ruin. He chose Gilford as the centre of his new enterprise and entered into partnership with William Agnew Stewart and Robert Thompson to raise the necessary capital. Land was obtained from Hugh Law of Woodbank to build the mill, and the tail race ran through the land of James Uprichard of Bannvale. The spinning mill opened in 1839 as Dunbar and Thompson, Stewart having died in 1837. It was an immediate success and drew large numbers of workers to the town. Between 1841 and 1851 the population more than quadrupled, from 643 to 2,814. By 1870 the mill employed over 2,000 workers and had built 200 houses between 1836 and 1862. Hugh Dunbar took his duties as an employer seriously: the mill provided a medical attendant and a school, and all mill-owned houses were inspected monthly, and annually lime-washed, painted and repaired at the firm's expense.

The houses in Ann Street are listed in Griffith's Valuation of 1863, where they are described as "slightly decayed but in repair". They varied in size and valuation from £5 to £10, and were generally larger than other houses built by the company, suggesting they may have been intended for mill supervisors. The first recorded resident of No. 5 was William Wright, whose two-storey house measuring 5¾ yards by 7½ yards with a single-storey return of 5 by 2 yards was leased from Dunbar McMaster & Co and valued at £5 5s. Wright paid a weekly rent of two shillings and sixpence, compared to the average workman's wage of 15 shillings per week and an average weekly family wage of 36 shillings in 1869.

Subsequent tenants included Alex McIlwaine (1881), Andrew McDowell (1885), Watson Mays (1894) and John Montgomery (1896). At the time of the 1901 census, the occupant was mill mechanic Robert McBurney, previously resident at No. 3, who lived in the five-room house with his wife, three young children and two sisters, all of whom also worked at the mill. Eliza Henderson was resident in 1903, and Robert McBurney was again recorded at the house in the 1911 census, by which time he and his wife had seven children between the ages of 2 and 18 living with them — the oldest employed as a spinning apprentice at the mill. The census records that the couple had had ten children in total, of whom three had died, reflecting the high rate of child mortality among the labouring classes of the period.

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 workers and machinery over from Ireland and installing his brother John as manager. The resulting emigration of workers had a significant effect on Gilford's population, which halved between 1871 and 1881. The company nonetheless continued to thrive in Gilford and enjoyed 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 owners maintained a paternalistic interest in their workers and in the life of the town throughout much of 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.