8 Ann Street, Gilford, CRAIGAVON, Co Down, BT63 6HX

8 Ann Street is a two-storey, four-bay end-of-terrace house built around 1840, situated at the east entrance to Gilford Mill, to the north-west of Gilford town centre. It forms part of a terrace of 25 dwellings on Ann Street and is of considerable interest both as an example of mill workers' housing and for its close relationship with the adjacent linen thread spinning mill. Although the terrace as a whole has been altered over the years — somewhat diminishing the group's overall integrity — this section retains much of its original character, and the terrace as a unit remains a good representative example of its type.

The house is L-shaped on plan, with a two-storey extension and a single-storey lean-to extension to the rear. The roof is pitched and hipped, covered in natural slate with a terracotta ridge, leaded hips, and rendered chimneystacks. Rainwater goods are cast-iron half-round. External walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render with quoins.

The principal elevation faces south and is four bays wide. The entrance door sits left of centre, flanked by a single window to its left and two windows to its right, with four first-floor windows positioned directly above the ground-floor openings; the ground- and first-floor windows to the far left are more widely spaced than the others. The entrance door is a six-panelled timber door with brass furniture, set within chamfered jambs and surmounted by a segmental fanlight. Windows throughout are replacement 6-over-6 timber sliding sashes with projecting masonry sills, except where noted otherwise.

The west elevation abuts the adjoining building. The rear (north) elevation has a 3-over-6 timber sliding sash window at first-floor right; at ground-floor right it is abutted by the single-storey lean-to extension, which has a casement window on its east face and a blank north face. To the left of the rear elevation, a two-storey pitched-roof return partly accommodates the adjoining building to the left (facing High Street) and partly houses the kitchen and a first-floor bedroom facing the rear yard. The west face of this return has a glazed timber-framed door at ground-floor level and a 3-over-6 timber sliding sash window at first-floor level; the remainder of this face was not viewed during inspection. The rear yard is enclosed by a red-brick wall and is accessed through a panelled-and-glazed timber door. The east elevation has two 6-over-6 timber casement windows at ground-floor level and two 3-over-6 timber sliding sash windows directly above at first-floor level. The house that previously backed onto the rear of number 10 has been incorporated into this dwelling.

The house was built by the proprietors of Gilford Mill, a linen thread spinning mill that was the principal driver of the town's 19th- and 20th-century growth. The mill was founded by Hugh Dunbar, whose family had long been involved in linen manufacturing — his grandfather had leased a property at Huntley from the Whyte family of Loughbrickland, where thread was made and hand-loom weavers produced linen cloth. By 1834, the spread of the new wet-spinning process and the resulting competition from mill-spun yarns left Dunbar with little choice but to establish his own spinning mill. He selected Gilford as the site and entered into partnership with William Agnew Stewart and Robert Thompson to raise the necessary capital. Land was obtained from Hugh Law of Woodbank, and the mill's tail race ran through land belonging to James Uprichard of Bannvale. Stewart died in 1837, and the mill opened in 1839 under the name Dunbar and Thompson. It was an immediate success, drawing large numbers of workers to the town and causing extraordinary population growth: between 1841 and 1851 the population more than quadrupled, from 643 to 2,814. By 1870 the mill employed over 2,000 workers, and between 1836 and 1862 the company built 200 houses for its workforce. All company-owned houses were inspected monthly, and were lime-washed, painted, and repaired annually at the firm's expense. The mill also provided a medical attendant and a school for its workers.

A view of the mill said to date from around 1841, shortly after its completion, shows the terrace including the current building. The terrace appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, labelled "Ann Street", and a photograph of 1900 shows that number 8 was at that time the only house in the terrace to retain its original fenestration. The Ann Street terrace is listed in Griffith's Valuation of 1863, with houses varying in valuation from £5 to £10; they were generally larger than other company-built housing and may have been intended for mill supervisors. The houses were described in that valuation as "slightly decayed but in repair."

Number 8 was by far the largest house in the terrace. The first recorded resident was Joseph Hamilton, whose two-storey house measured 12 yards by 6, with a two-storey return of 5 by 4 yards and a single-storey outbuilding of 6 by 3 yards. The property was leased from Dunbar McMaster and Co. and valued at £10. Subsequent tenants included Thomas McCullough (1872), Paul Sayder (1896), Ed McCall (by 1903), Thomas Sprott (1904), Harold McMaster (1909), and David Houston, who was in residence by 1910 and remained at the time of the 1911 census. The census records Houston as a grocery manager, living with his wife, son, and a boarder who was a grocer's apprentice. The building is not recorded in valuation records or census returns as a shop, though it is possible the business was conducted from the house itself. Later tenants included William J. Thompson (1914) and David M. Walker (1917), after whom no further tenants are listed in the Annual Revisions. The property was vacant at the time of the 1901 census.

In 1879, following the imposition of a very high import tariff on linen thread in the United States, Hugh Dunbar McMaster established a mill in Greenwich Village, New York, transferring workers and machinery from Ireland and installing his brother John as manager. The emigration of workers from Gilford had a significant effect on the town's population, which halved between 1871 and 1881. Despite this, the company continued to prosper in Gilford 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 mill remained central to the life of the town throughout much of the 20th century, but a decline in the Ulster linen industry eventually led to its closure in the early 1980s. The building continues in use as a dwelling.