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

14 Ann Street is a two-bay, two-storey mid-terrace house built around 1840–1850, situated on the main road through Gilford, east of Gilford Mill, and forming part of a terrace of 25 dwellings on Ann Street (excluding the gatehouse at No. 1). It is square on plan.

The roof is covered in artificial slate with angled ridge tiles, and there is a rendered chimneystack fitted with clay pots. Rainwater goods are cast-iron half-round. The external walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render. Windows are replacement 1/1 timber sliding sash with projecting masonry sills; the rear elevation has 1/1 timber sliding sash windows with margin panes. The principal elevation faces east and features a window to the centre at first-floor level, a half-panelled timber door to the ground floor right, and a window to the ground floor left. The south elevation is abutted by the adjoining building to that side, and the north elevation is abutted by the adjoining building on that side. The west (rear) elevation has a window to the centre at first-floor level and a window to the left at landing level; the ground floor of the rear elevation was concealed at the time of survey. The yard is enclosed by a roughcast rendered wall with a timber-sheeted latch gate to the right. Vehicular access is available to the rear, and the boundary with the mill site is marked by mature trees.

The house was originally part of a back-to-back terrace built by the proprietors of the adjacent linen thread spinning mill to house their workforce. The mill was established by Hugh Dunbar in partnership with William Agnew Stewart and Robert Thompson; it opened in 1839 under the name Dunbar and Thompson (Stewart having died in 1837) and later traded as Dunbar McMaster & Co Ltd. The mill was an immediate and enormous commercial success, and was largely responsible for the rapid growth of Gilford throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Between 1841 and 1851 alone the town's population more than quadrupled, from 643 to 2,814, and by 1870 the mill employed over 2,000 workers. The company built around 200 houses for its workforce between 1836 and 1862, all of which were inspected monthly by the firm's owners and were annually lime-washed, painted, and repaired at the firm's expense.

This terrace appears to be among the earliest housing built by the company. It was originally constructed as two rows of back-to-back houses: numbers 9 to 26 fronted onto High Street, and behind them, sharing their back wall, was a second row called Bann Street, which faced towards the linen 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 are shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, captioned 'High Street' and 'Bann St[reet]'. The houses are listed in Griffith's Valuation of 1863 as the property of Dunbar McMaster & Co. The High Street houses were each valued at £2 10s and measured 15 feet long by 12 feet wide; they were rated 'deteriorated by age and not in good repair', suggesting they had already been standing for some time. The Bann Street houses to the rear were valued slightly lower at £2 5s, despite being the same size.

The back-to-back houses have been described as 'the most basic units available, having only two rooms with single windows at each floor', providing rather cramped living space for more than four occupants. The absence of rear doors and windows reduced ventilation, though it was noted that the open site allowed reasonable circulation of fresh air, and the houses were considered a considerable improvement on the poorer type of rural dwellings of the period. Despite their modest size, it was not uncommon for these two-room dwellings to house families of four or more, though they were also frequently occupied by single people or couples without children. Valuation records and census returns show considerable mobility among tenants, with many living at two or more addresses within the terrace over the years.

The first tenants recorded at what is now number 14 (then number 15) were James Stewart on the High Street side and Mary McKenzie in the Bann Street house to the rear. Later tenants included John Rosewell (1887), Ann E. Gracey (1902), Margaret Campbell (1902), and Henry McDonnell (1907). At the time of the 1901 census, the High Street side was occupied by Elizabeth Stewart, a 73-year-old widow who kept house while her daughter worked at the mill, and whose nine-year-old grandson also lived there. In Bann Street to the rear lived James Campbell, a farm labourer and widower from County Tyrone, with his sister and nephew, both of whom worked at the mill. By the 1911 census, the occupier was Ann Eliza Gracey, a line drawer at the mill, living with her nineteen-year-old son, a mill labourer; to the rear lived Thomas Henry Anderson, a flax dresser, with his wife and two young children. In 1915 the Bann Street house to the rear was incorporated into the front house, and the combined dwelling was revalued at £4 10s with a rent of 3s 3d per week. Subsequent occupants included Patrick Murray (date unknown) and William Thompson (1924).

The wider history of the mill includes a notable episode in 1879, when the imposition of very high import taxes on linen thread in the United States led Hugh Dunbar McMaster to establish a mill in Greenwich Village, New York, bringing over 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 thrive and had a worldwide reputation; the British Trade Journal of 1890 reported that the firm exported twine for salmon fishing to British Columbia, carpet threads, bookbinder's threads, extra strong threads for leather and thick cloths, and fine threads for sewing-machinists and lace makers, to the United States, North, South and Central America, Brazil, Australia, and the rest of the British Colonies. The mill remained central to life in Gilford through much of the 20th century, but a decline in the Ulster linen industry eventually led to its closure in the early 1980s.

The house has been much altered over the years and retains little of its original historic fabric. It was delisted in November 2013 on the grounds that, while of local interest as an example of mill workers' housing associated with Gilford Mill, it is not among the best examples of the type, and the extensive alterations it has undergone have significantly reduced its architectural and historic interest. The building continues in use as a dwelling.