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

11 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 was originally constructed as part of a back-to-back housing complex built for workers at the adjacent linen thread spinning mill.

The house is square on plan, with a single-storey flat-roof extension to the rear. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with angled ridge tiles. There is a rendered chimney stack fitted with clay pots. Rainwater goods are cast-iron half-round to the front and uPVC to the rear. External walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render. Windows are replacement 1/1 timber casements with projecting masonry sills.

The principal elevation faces east and features a window at first-floor centre, a half-panelled timber door at ground-floor right, and a window at ground-floor left. The south elevation is abutted by the adjoining building. The west (rear) elevation has a window to the first floor right of centre, is abutted at ground-floor left by a flat-roof return, and has a timber-sheeted door to the right leading to an enclosed yard. The rear extension has a blank west face; the right cheek was not viewed; the left cheek abuts the neighbouring property. The north elevation is also abutted by an adjoining building. The site has vehicular access to the rear and is bounded toward the mill site by mature trees.

The house is one of the earliest dwellings built by the proprietors of Gilford's linen thread spinning mill, originally trading as Dunbar and Thompson and later as Dunbar McMaster & Co Ltd. The mill, which opened in 1839, was the engine of Gilford's extraordinary growth: the town's population more than quadrupled between 1841 and 1851, rising from 643 to 2,814. Hugh Dunbar, whose family had long been involved in linen production — his grandfather having leased a property at Huntley from the Whytes of Loughbrickland, where Hugh manufactured thread and hand-loom weavers produced linen cloth — was compelled by competition from the new wet-spinning process to establish his own spinning mill in 1834. He chose Gilford as the site, obtained land from Hugh Law of Woodbank, and entered into partnership with William Agnew Stewart and Robert Thompson to raise the necessary capital. Stewart died in 1837 and the mill opened two years later under the name Dunbar and Thompson. By 1870 the mill employed over 2,000 workers and had built 200 houses between 1836 and 1862. All mill-owned houses were inspected monthly, and annually lime-washed, painted and repaired at the firm's expense.

The terrace was originally laid out as two parallel rows of back-to-back houses. Numbers 9 to 26 faced onto High Street, while a second row behind them — sharing the same back wall — faced toward the mill and was known as Bann Street. Both rows appear on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, captioned "High Street" and "Bann St[reet]", and a view of the mill said to date from around 1841 shows the rear of the terrace as it then appeared. The back-to-back arrangement has been described as providing only the most basic accommodation: two rooms with single windows at each floor, offering rather cramped living space for more than four occupants. The absence of rear doors and windows reduced ventilation, though this was considered less critical on an open site allowing free circulation of air. The dwellings were judged adequate for single occupants or smaller family units and represented a considerable improvement on the poorer type of rural dwelling of the time.

In Griffith's Valuation of 1863 the houses are listed as the property of Dunbar McMaster & Co. The High Street houses were each valued at £2 10s, measured two storeys, 15 feet long by 12 feet wide, and 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 dimensions. The first recorded tenant of what was then number twelve (now number eleven) was Henry Nolan; Joseph Murphy occupied the corresponding house to the rear on Bann Street. Subsequent tenants recorded in the Annual Revisions include Sarah McComish (1902), Mary A. Irvine (1902), Robert Harrison (1905) and Joseph Roberts (1908). Sarah McComish appears in the 1901 census as a reeler at the mill, living alone, and remained in the house through the 1911 census, still working as a yarn reeler. In 1915 the Bann Street house behind was incorporated into the front house, and the combined dwelling was revalued at £4 10s with a weekly rent of 3s 3d. The last tenant recorded in the Annual Revisions was Mary Ann McLaughlin in 1921.

In 1879, following the imposition of very high import tariffs on linen thread in the United States, Hugh Dunbar McMaster established a mill in Greenwich Village, New York, sending workers and machinery from Ireland and installing his brother John as manager. The resulting emigration of workers had a significant impact on Gilford's population, which halved between 1871 and 1881. Despite this, the company continued to thrive and gained 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's owners maintained a paternalistic concern for their workers and for the life of the town, which continued to revolve around the mill through much of the 20th century. A decline in the Ulster linen industry eventually led to the mill's closure in the early 1980s.

The house remains in residential use. It was removed from the statutory list on 1 November 2013. While of local interest as part of an early mill workers' housing complex with strong historical associations with Gilford Mill, it is not considered among the best examples of its type. Extensive alterations over the years have left little historic fabric remaining and have significantly reduced both its architectural and historic interest.