5 Ann Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-bay two-storey mid-terrace house, built c.1840 and located east of Gilford Mill (HB17/01/020A), north west of Gilford town centre. Rectangular on plan with two-storey and single-storey gabled extensions to rear.

Pitched natural slate roof with angled ridge tiles and rendered chimneystack. uPVC rainwater goods. Walling is painted ruled and lined render. Windows are replacement 1/1 timber sliding sash (timber casements to rear) with projecting masonry sills.

The principal elevation faces east and is two openings wide. To left at ground floor is a modern six-panelled timber door.

The west elevation is abutted by adjoining building (HB17/01/021D).

The north (rear) elevation is entirely abutted by a gabled return comprising two windows to first floor; window to ground floor left; abutted at right by a gabled extension; left cheek abuts neighbouring building; right cheek not viewed.
Gable of extension has a modern timber door to left and a window to right; single window to left cheek; right cheek not viewed.

The east elevation is abutted by adjoining building (HB17/01/021F).

Setting:
Situated at the east entrance of Gilford Mill, forming part of a terrace of 25 dwellings on Ann Street (excluding the gatelodge No.1 Ann Street).

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Render
Windows: Timber
RWG: uPVC

Historical information

The house is part of a terrace built by the proprietors of the adjacent linen thread spinning mill, a hugely successful business in its day which was largely responsible for the growth and prosperity of Gilford in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This terrace appears to be among the earliest housing built by the company, originally known as Dunbar and Thompson and later trading as Dunbar McMaster & Co Ltd. A view of the mill said to date from c.1841, shortly after its completion, shows the terrace and the current building. The terrace is first shown on the second edition OS map of 1858, captioned ‘Ann St[reet]’ and a photograph of 1900 shows the original fenestration, 3/6 sliding sash windows on the first floor and 6/6 to the ground floor. A solid timber door was surmounted by a transom window. (Logan; Bassett; Cairns)

Hugh Dunbar was the descendant of a linen family, his grandfather having leased a property at Huntley from the Whyte’s of Loughbrickland, where Hugh was manufacturing thread and his hand-loom weavers produced linen cloth. In 1834 the competition from mill-spun yarns, produced by the new wet-spinning process was such that Dunbar was compelled to start his own spinning mill or go out of business. Dunbar chose Gilford as the centre of his new enterprise and entered into partnership with William Agnew Stewart and Robert Thompson, in order to raise the necessary funds. Land was obtained from Hugh Law of Woodbank to build the mill, and the tail race ran through the land of James Uprichard of Bannvale. The spinning mill opened in 1839 as Dunbar and Thompson, Stewart having died in 1837. It was an immediate success and attracted large numbers of workers to the town. Hugh Dunbar, like many of his ilk, took his duties as an employer seriously and the mill provided a structure of social welfare support, such as a medical attendant and a school. Dunbar began building houses for his workforce almost immediately, as the town began an extremely rapid growth in population following the opening of the mill. Between 1841 and 1851 the population more than quadrupled, from 643 to 2,814. By 1870 the mill was employing over 2,000 workers and built 200 houses between 1836 and 1862. All the houses owned by the mill were inspected monthly by the firm’s owners, annually lime-washed, painted and repaired at the firm’s expense. (Logan;Cairns)

The current terrace is listed in Griffith’s Valuation of 1863. The houses in Ann Street varied in size and in valuation from £5 to £10, but were in general larger than other houses built by the company and may have been intended as accommodation for mill supervisors. The houses were rated as ‘slightly decayed but in repair’. The first resident to be noted in number 5 was William Wright, whose two-storey house measuring 5? yards x 7? with a single storey return of 5 x2 yards was leased from Dunbar McMaster & Co and valued at £5.5s. Wright paid a rent of two shillings and sixpence a week which can be compared to the average wage of a workman in 1869 of 15s per week and the average weekly family wage of 36s. (Logan)

Subsequent tenants were Alex McIlwaine (1881), Andrew McDowell (1885) Watson Mays (1894) and John Montgomery (1896). Resident at the time of the 1901 census was mill mechanic Robert McBurney who had previously lived at number 3. He lived in the five-room house with his wife, three young children and two sisters who also worked at the mill. Eliza Henderson lived in the house in 1903 and Robert McBurney was again resident at the time of the 1911 census. By now he had seven children between the ages of 2 and 18, the oldest of whom was employed as a spinning apprentice at the mill. The census records that the couple had had ten children in total and three had died, reflecting a high rate of child mortality, especially among the labouring classes.

In 1879, following the imposition of a very high import tax on linen thread in the United States, Hugh Dunbar McMaster established a mill in Greenwich Village New York. Workers and machinery were brought over from Ireland and Hugh’s brother John was installed as manager. The emigration of workers from Gilford had a very significant effect on the population, which halved between 1871 and 1881. The company nonetheless continued to thrive in Gilford for some years and had a world-wide reputation, the British Trade Journal of 1890 reporting 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 owners retained a paternalistic interest in their workers and the life of the town, which revolved around the mill through much of the twentieth century. However, a decline in the Ulster linen industry eventually led to the mill’s closure in the early 1980’s. (Logan; Cairns)

The building has been retained in use as a dwelling.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/26/1 First Edition OS Map 1834
2. PRONI OS/6/3/26/2 Second Edition OS map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/3/26/3 Third Edition OS Map 1901-2
4. PRONI OS/6/3/26/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1920-21
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/48E Griffiths Valuation (1856-64)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/25A-H Annual Revisions (1864-1930)
7. 1901 census online
8. 1911 census online

Secondary Sources

1. Bassett, G H “County Down One Hundred Years Ago: A Guide and Directory 1886” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1988
2. Cairns, A “The Church and Community of St John the Evangelist Gilford, Sesquicentennial 1850-2000” Lurgan: Inglewood
Press, 2002
3. Graham, F “The History of Gilford Presbyterian Church and other articles of local interest” 2006
4. Logan, R A “A Window on the Past, A History of Gilford County Down” Banbridge Chronicle, (n.d.)
5. Rankin, K “The Linen Houses of the Bann Valley, The story of their families” Belfast, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2007

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A two-bay two-storey mid-terrace house, built c.1840 and located east of Gilford Mill (HB17/01/020A-F). The building is of interest primarily due to its relationship with Gilford mill and as an example of mill workers houses in the town. Forming part of a terrace of eight, all of which have been altered over the years, compromising the interest of the group. However, their location and relationship to the mill and its setting are of interest and, as a whole, this section of the terrace is a good example of the type.