5 Harker's Hill, Cornascriebe Road, Portadown, BT62 3SS

5 Harker's Hill is a small, single-storey vernacular house, part of a rare surviving group of six mill workers' dwellings built around 1871. The house sits at the end of a country lane east of Cornascriebe Road, roughly 1.4 kilometres west of Laurelvale and 3.8 kilometres west of Tandragee. What makes this group particularly unusual is that the houses face each other across a shared communal yard and lane in a rural setting—a layout that is increasingly uncommon.

The house is one of a matching pair and is roughly square in plan with a small single-storey rear extension to the north-east. The walls are constructed in clay brick and finished with lime wash, with a painted plinth to the front (south-facing) elevation. The roof is double-pitched and covered with natural slate, with a small fixed skylight to the rear north side and clipped eaves without overhangs. Most of the rainwater goods have been replaced in uPVC. A chimneystack rises on the party wall at the ridgeline, constructed in brick and rendered (though much of this render has fallen away), with a corbelled cap.

The front façade is asymmetrical. To the left is a flat-headed door opening with a timber sheeted door. To the right are two flat-headed window openings, each with 2/2 timber sash frames. The east gable has been rebuilt in concrete block. The rear façade includes a single-storey return to the right side, constructed in concrete block and covered with a shallow single-pitch roof of corrugated asbestos sheeting. To the left of this, on the main rear façade, are two flat-headed window openings with 6/6 timber sash frames, though the astragals to the upper sash in the left window have now been removed.

The detailing and layout remain largely intact both externally and internally, and the rural setting has remained largely untouched. The group as a whole represents an increasingly rare example of its type.

The houses were developed by Charles Moneypenny, who lived nearby at what is now 14 Cornascriebe Road. They are said locally to have originally housed workers employed at a mill to the rear of Moneypenny's property, the remains of which still exist. Around 1903, the group came into the possession of the Sintons, a prominent mill-owning family, by which time the mill itself appears to have ceased working. By 1904, the dwellings were noted by valuers simply as 'cottier houses'. The lease of the whole group was acquired by the present owner's ancestor around 1930, with the freehold acquired around 1965.

This particular house (No. 5) was occupied by Eliza Gibson from 1871 to 1887, followed by James McDonald until 1904. Subsequent tenants included Eliza Gibson again, Mary Quinn in 1908, Georgina McIlwaine in 1915, and William Speers in 1964. The property was noted as vacant in 1966 and has remained vacant since. One former occupant from the McIlwaine family operated as a cobbler and shoe mender from the rear extension. This extension itself appears to date from the mid-20th century.

All properties in the group appear to have been last occupied as private dwellings in the mid to later 1960s. The building is recorded on Ordnance Survey maps of 1835 and 1860, though the current block of semi-detached dwellings (Nos. 5–6) was likely built afresh around 1871, as were the eastern half of the southern row (Nos. 3–4). The western half of the row (Nos. 1–2) may also have been built new, though its different angle and window proportions suggest it may partly represent a survival of an earlier building shown on the 1835 and 1860 maps.