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

Number 4 Ann Street is a two-bay, two-storey mid-terrace house built around 1840, situated at the east entrance to Gilford Mill, north-west of Gilford town centre. It forms part of a terrace of 25 dwellings on Ann Street (excluding the gatelodge at No. 1) and sits in close relationship to the mill complex. Its principal significance lies in this association with the 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 has diminished something of its collective interest — its location, its relationship to the mill and its setting remain of value, and this section of the terrace is a good representative example of its type.

The building is rectangular on plan with a pitched natural slate roof finished 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 with projecting masonry sills, though the rear elevation retains replacement timber casements. The principal elevation faces east and is two openings wide; to the left at ground floor is a modern four-panelled timber door. The west elevation abuts the adjoining property, as does the east elevation. The rear (north) elevation has two windows at first floor, with the right-hand one set at a raised cill level; there is a window at ground floor left and a modern timber door to the centre.

A photograph taken around 1900 records the original fenestration: three-over-six sliding sash windows at first floor and six-over-six sashes at ground floor, with a solid timber door surmounted by a transom window. The terrace is first shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, labelled Ann Street, and a view of the mill said to date from around 1841, shortly after its completion, already shows the terrace and this building in place.

The house was built by the proprietors of the adjacent linen thread spinning mill, originally known as Dunbar and Thompson and later trading as Dunbar McMaster and Co Ltd. The story of the mill begins with Hugh Dunbar, descended from a linen-making family whose grandfather had leased a property at Huntley from the Whytes of Loughbrickland, where Hugh was manufacturing thread and hand-loom weavers were producing linen cloth. By 1834, competition from mill-spun yarns produced by the new wet-spinning process made it necessary for Dunbar to establish his own spinning mill or face ruin. He chose Gilford as the location and entered into partnership with William Agnew Stewart and Robert Thompson to raise the required 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 as Dunbar and Thompson, Stewart having died in 1837. It was an immediate success and drew large numbers of workers into 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. All company-owned houses were inspected monthly, and were lime-washed, painted and repaired at the firm's expense on an annual basis.

Hugh Dunbar took his responsibilities as an employer seriously, providing a medical attendant and a school for his workforce and beginning to build housing for workers almost immediately after the mill opened. The Ann Street terrace appears to be among the earliest housing built by the company. The houses listed in Griffith's Valuation of 1863 varied in size and annual valuation from £5 to £10, and were generally larger than other company housing in the town, suggesting they may have been intended for mill supervisors. They were recorded at the time as "slightly decayed but in repair."

The first resident recorded at number 4 was Joseph Williams, whose two-storey house measuring approximately five-and-a-half yards by seven yards was leased from Dunbar McMaster and Co and valued at £5. A later resident, referred to in sources as Davison, paid a rent of two shillings and sixpence per week, which can be compared with the average workman's wage of 15 shillings per week and an average weekly family wage of 36 shillings in 1869. By 1894, John McKee, a mill worker, had moved in and was still in residence at the time of the 1901 census, when he was 72 years old. He lived with his wife and an unmarried daughter, also a mill worker. By 1903, with her parents having died, Margaret McKee is listed as occupier, followed by James H. Graham in 1905 and Thomas Macklin in 1907. At the time of the 1911 census the tenant was Mary Macklin, a widow from County Monaghan, who kept house for her four children, all of whom worked in the mill in the roles of screwer, spreader, linen bleacher and doffer. Her daughter Kate Macklin had become the householder by 1920.

In 1879, following the imposition of a very high import tax on linen thread in the United States, Hugh Dunbar McMaster established a mill in Greenwich Village, New York. Workers and machinery were brought over from Ireland, and Hugh's brother John was installed as manager. The emigration of workers from Gilford had a significant effect on the town's population, which halved between 1871 and 1881. The company nevertheless continued to prosper in Gilford for some years and developed 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, which continued to revolve around the mill for 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 has been retained in residential use throughout.