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

26 Ann Street is a two-bay, two-storey end-of-terrace house built around 1840–1850, situated on the main road through Gilford, east of Gilford Mill and north of Gilford town centre. It forms part of a terrace of 25 dwellings on Ann Street (excluding the gatehouse at No. 1 Ann Street) and was originally constructed as part of a back-to-back housing complex for workers at the adjacent linen thread spinning mill.

The building is square on plan, with a modern two-storey return and a single-storey lean-to extension to the rear. The roof is pitched natural slate with blue-black angled ridge tiles, and there is a rendered chimneystack fitted with clay pots. Rainwater goods are cast-iron ogee profile. External walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render. Windows are replacement 2-over-2 timber sliding sash with horns and horizontal glazing bars.

The principal elevation faces east and has 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 abuts the neighbouring property. The rear (west) elevation has a first-floor window at the right, with the modern two-storey return to the left and a single-storey lean-to extension to the right of that. The return has a first-floor window and a timber-sheeted door with sidelight at ground floor. The right cheek of the return has a single ground-floor window; the left cheek is abutted at ground-floor level by the lean-to, with the first floor not inspected. The lean-to has a window in its west face. The north gable has a single window at ground-floor right. The site has vehicular access to the rear and is bounded toward the mill by mature trees.

The house was originally one half of a back-to-back pair. The terrace to which it belongs appears to be among the earliest housing built by the mill's proprietors, originally trading as Dunbar and Thompson and later as Dunbar McMaster & Co. Ltd. Numbers 9 to 26 of what was then called High Street formed the front row, each house sharing a back wall with a corresponding house in a second row known as Bann Street, which faced toward the mill. The houses are first shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, with both rows captioned "High Street" and "Bann St[reet]", and are listed in Griffith's Valuation of 1863 as the property of Dunbar McMaster & Co. At that time the High Street houses were valued at £2 10s and described as two storeys, 15 feet long and 12 feet wide, though already rated as "deteriorated by age and not in good repair." The Bann Street houses behind them were valued slightly lower at £2 5s, despite being the same size.

The mill itself had opened in 1839 after Hugh Dunbar — descended from a linen-manufacturing family who had leased property at Huntley from the Whytes of Loughbrickland — chose Gilford as the site for his new spinning enterprise. Faced with competition from the new wet-spinning process, Dunbar entered into partnership with William Agnew Stewart and Robert Thompson to raise funds, obtaining land from Hugh Law of Woodbank, with the mill's tail race running through land belonging to James Uprichard of Bannvale. Stewart died in 1837 before the mill opened. The mill was an immediate commercial success and drew large numbers of workers to Gilford: the town's population more than quadrupled between 1841 and 1851, rising 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 mill-owned houses were inspected monthly, and annually lime-washed, painted, and repaired at the firm's expense. The mill also provided a medical attendant and a school for the wider community.

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 cramped conditions for more than four occupants. The absence of rear doors and windows reduced ventilation, though this was considered less critical given the open setting. They were noted as adequate for single people or small families and a considerable improvement on poorer rural dwellings of the period. Despite this, it was not unusual for families of four or more to live in these two-room dwellings. Valuation records and census returns show considerable mobility among tenants, with many living at two or more addresses within the terrace over time.

This particular house, recorded in the valuation records as number 27 (now number 26), was first tenanted by George Alwell on the High Street side and Elizabeth McKeon on the Bann Street side. Later tenants included Ed McBirney (1902), Moses McBirney (1907), Annie Hammil (1902), and Thomas Lynas (1904). The 1901 census records Moses McBirney — a thread finisher at the mill, living with his wife and a male boarder who was a mill labourer — on the High Street side, and James Lynch, a mill worker living with his wife and three young children, on the Bann Street side. By 1911, Moses McBirney remained in residence, by then working as a labourer at the mill and living with a boarder who was his brother-in-law. On the Bann Street side, David Gibson, a rover at the mill, lived with his wife — who worked as a reeler — and five children aged between one and ten.

In 1915–16, most of the Bann Street houses were incorporated into their corresponding High Street properties. However, this house and its neighbours toward the end of the terrace continued as back-to-back dwellings with two sets of tenants until the 1930s. The High Street side was subsequently occupied by Sarah Anne Lunn until at least 1929, and the Bann Street side by Eva Gibson from 1924. The Bann Street portion had been incorporated into the front dwelling by 1937, and the combined house was revalued at £5 in 1938, at which point it was described as a "good type parlour house" comprising a parlour, kitchen, scullery, and two bedrooms, with the scullery and lavatory housed in a rear extension.

The wider history of the mill shaped the community considerably. In 1879, following the imposition of heavy import tariffs on linen thread in the United States, Hugh Dunbar McMaster established a mill in Greenwich Village, New York, bringing over workers and machinery from Ireland and installing his brother John as manager. The resulting emigration of workers from Gilford halved the town's population between 1871 and 1881, and many of the early occupants of these houses are likely to have been part of that movement. The Gilford mill nonetheless continued to prosper, with the British Trade Journal of 1890 reporting that Dunbar McMaster & Co. exported twine for salmon fishing to British Columbia, carpet threads, bookbinders' threads, heavy-duty threads for leather and thick cloths, and fine threads for sewing machinists and lace makers, to destinations including the United States, South and Central America, Brazil, Australia, and the rest of the British Colonies. The mill and its owners remained central to life in Gilford through much of the 20th century, though a long decline in the Ulster linen industry eventually led to its closure in the early 1980s.

The building has been retained in use as a dwelling. Although of local historical interest for its association with Gilford Mill and as an example of mill workers' housing, it is no longer considered of special architectural or historic interest. Extensive alterations over the years have removed much of the original historic fabric and significantly reduced both its architectural and historic significance. It was removed from the statutory list in November 2013.