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

3 Harker's Hill is a small, single-storey vernacular house built around 1871 as part of a group of six dwellings constructed to house mill workers. The building is located at the end of a short country lane off Cornascriebe Road, roughly 1.4 kilometres west of Laurelvale and 3.8 kilometres west of Tandragee. It stands within a communal yard shared with four other contemporary houses, an arrangement that is unusual in a rural setting.

The house is one of a short row of four similar but non-identical dwellings that face a complementary pair of semi-detached cottages across the lane to the north. This group layout and its largely untouched rural setting make it a rare survival of its type. The detailing and layout remain largely intact both externally and internally.

The building is roughly square in plan with a small single-storey extension to the rear. The front wall is constructed in clay brick finished with lime wash and a painted plinth. The rear wall and extension are finished with lined cement render. The double-pitched roof is covered with natural slate and incorporates a small fixed skylight to the south side. Eaves are clipped without overhangs and rainwater goods have been replaced in uPVC. Brick chimneystacks with rendered finishes and corbelled caps rise on either side of the ridgeline. The rear extension has a single-pitch roof covered in corrugated iron.

The front façade is asymmetrical, featuring a flat-headed timber-sheeted door opening on the left and two flat-headed window openings on the right, each with 2/2 timber sash frames and painted stone sills. The rear elevation has a flat-headed window opening either side of the extension: a 1/1 sash to the right and a 6/6 timber sash to the left. The extension's west and south facades are blank, while the east façade has a timber-sheeted door with a margined sidelight.

Historical records indicate that buildings occupied this site from at least the 1830s onwards, although the present structures appear to date largely from 1871, when six dwellings are first recorded in valuation records. The group was developed by Charles Moneypenny, who lived nearby at what is now 14 Cornascriebe Road. The houses were built to accommodate workers employed in a mill situated to the rear of Moneypenny's property; the mill remains are still visible. Around 1903, ownership passed to the Sinton family, another prominent mill-owning household. By 1904 the mill had ceased operation and the dwellings were recorded as cottier houses.

The lease of the entire group was acquired by the present owner's ancestor around 1930, with the freehold purchased around 1965. All properties appear to have been last occupied as private dwellings in the mid to late 1960s, with this particular house vacated in 1970.

From 1871 to 1889 the house was occupied by Henry Shannon, followed by John Larkin, then Samuel Mulligan (1892-95) and Sarah Mulligan. In 1917 this property and the adjacent house to the west were amalgamated under Joseph Woods, though they were separated again around 1933 when Mrs. Cullen became tenant. She remained until 1960, succeeded by William J. Wright, then Thomas Gibson in 1966.