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

16 Ann Street is a two-bay, two-storey mid-terrace house built around 1840–1850, situated east of Gilford Mill and forming part of a terrace of 25 dwellings on Ann Street, north of Gilford town centre. It is no longer listed as a building of special interest, having been delisted in November 2013, though it retains local significance as part of a rare surviving example of 19th-century mill workers' housing in the town.

The house is square on plan, with a modern two-storey flat-roofed return to the rear. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles, and there is a rendered chimney stack fitted with clay pots. Rainwater goods are cast-iron half-round to the front and uPVC to the rear. The external walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render. Windows throughout are replacement uPVC units set on projecting masonry sills.

The principal elevation faces east and comprises a window at first-floor centre, a modern half-panelled timber door at ground-floor right, and a window at ground-floor left. The south elevation abuts the neighbouring property. The rear (west) elevation has a window at first-floor right and is abutted at the left by the modern two-storey flat-roofed return, which itself has a single-storey extension to the right accessed by a timber-sheeted half-door; the return has a window at each floor level. The north elevation abuts the neighbouring property to that side. Vehicular access is available to the rear. The site is bounded towards the mill by mature trees.

Little historic fabric now remains, the building having been considerably altered over the years.

The house was originally constructed as one half of a back-to-back pair, built by the proprietors of the adjacent linen thread spinning mill — one of the most commercially successful enterprises of 19th-century Ulster, and the primary driver of Gilford's growth. The mill was established by Hugh Dunbar, whose grandfather had been a linen manufacturer leasing property at Huntley from the Whyte family of Loughbrickland. By the early 1830s, competition from the new wet-spinning process compelled Dunbar to establish his own spinning mill or face ruin. He chose Gilford as his base, entering into partnership with William Agnew Stewart and Robert Thompson to raise the necessary capital. Land was obtained from Hugh Law of Woodbank, with the tail race running through land belonging to 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, drawing large numbers of workers to the town. Between 1841 and 1851 the population more than quadrupled, rising from 643 to 2,814.

Hugh Dunbar took his responsibilities as an employer seriously. The mill provided workers with access to a medical attendant and a school, 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 firm's expense. The terrace on Ann Street — originally known as High Street — appears to be among the earliest housing built by the company. Numbers 9 to 26 fronted onto High Street, while a second row of houses known as Bann Street ran to their rear, sharing the back wall and opening towards the mill. A view of the mill said to date from around 1841, shortly after its completion, shows the rear of the terrace as it then appeared, and both rows of houses are shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, captioned "High Street" and "Bann Street" respectively.

The back-to-back houses have been described as "the most basic units available, having only two rooms with single windows at each floor they would have provided rather cramped living space for more than four occupants. The lack of rear doors and windows and the resultant reduction in ventilation was probably less critical in an open site which allowed unlimited circulation of fresh air. They were adequate for single occupation or smaller family units and would have been a considerable improvement on the poorer type of rural dwellings." The houses were often occupied by single people and couples without children, though it was not uncommon for a family of four or more to live in these two-room dwellings.

In Griffith's Valuation of 1863, the houses are listed as the property of Dunbar McMaster and Co. The High Street houses — each two storeys, 15 feet long and 12 feet wide — were valued at £2 10s, while the Bann Street houses to the rear were valued at £2 5s despite being the same size. The valuation notes that the High Street houses were "deteriorated by age and not in good repair", suggesting they had already been standing for some years by that point. Valuation records and census returns reveal considerable mobility among tenants, with many living at two or more addresses within the terrace over time.

The first tenants recorded at what is now number 16 were Anne Story on the High Street side and William Harvey in the rear house fronting Bann Street. Later tenants included Robert McKeown (1902), Elizabeth McAlanney (1904), William Adamson (1905), John Burns (1902), Sarah Jackson (1905), and John Jackson (1907). At the time of the 1901 census, Robert McKeown — a mill overseer — lived on the High Street side with his wife and two young children. In the rear house, John Burns, a mill worker, lived with his wife and three children, the two eldest of whom also worked at the mill. By the 1911 census, the High Street side was occupied by Thomas Lyness, a flax rougher living with his wife and four young children, while John Jackson, an unemployed flax dresser, and his wife — a preparer in the flax mill — occupied the Bann Street house to the rear. In 1916 the rear house was incorporated into the front dwelling, and the combined property was revalued at £4 10s with a weekly rent of 3s 3d. It was subsequently occupied by Eliza Smith. Most of the remaining back-to-back Bann Street houses were similarly absorbed into the front houses between 1915 and 1916, though six survived until the 1930s.

In 1879, following the imposition of heavy import tariffs 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 of workers from Gilford had a profound effect on the town's population, which halved between 1871 and 1881. Despite this, the company continued to flourish and had developed a worldwide reputation by the late 19th century. 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 and its owners remained central to the life of Gilford through much of the 20th century, though a prolonged decline in the Ulster linen industry eventually led to the mill's closure in the early 1980s.

The building continues in use as a private dwelling. While it retains local interest as part of Gilford's mill workers' housing heritage, the extent of its alterations has significantly reduced its architectural and historic integrity, and it is no longer considered to be of special interest.