8 Ann Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey four-bay end-terrace house, built c.1840 and located east of Gilford Mill (HB17/01/020A), north west of Gilford town centre. L-shaped on plan with two-storey extension and single-storey lean-to extension to rear.

Pitched and hipped natural slate roof with terracotta ridge, leaded hip and rendered chimneystacks. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods. Walling is painted ruled and lined render with quoins. Windows are replacement 6/6 timber sliding sash with projecting masonry sills (unless otherwise stated).

The principal elevation faces south and is four openings wide comprising entrance door to left of centre flanked by a single window to left and two windows to right; four first floor windows directly over ground floor openings. Windows to first and ground floor left are more widely spaced. Six-panelled timber door with brass door furniture, flanked by chamfered jambs and surmounted by segmental fanlight.

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

The north (rear) elevation comprises a 3/6 timber sliding sash window to first floor right; abutted to ground floor right by a single-storey lean-to extension comprising a casement window to east face; blank north face. Rear elevation abutted to left by a two-storey pitched roof return which partly houses the adjoining building (HB17/01/021I) to the left (facing High Street) and partly the kitchen and a first floor bedroom to left (facing the rear yard); west face has a glazed timber framed door to ground floor and a 3/6 timber sliding sash window to first floor (remainder of this face not viewed). Rear yard enclosed by red-brick wall and accessed via panelled-and-glazed timber door.

The east elevation comprises two 6/6 timber casement windows to ground floor and two 3/6 timber sliding sash windows directly over to first floor.

Setting:

Corner sited at the east entrance of Gilford Mill, north of Gilford town centre, 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: Cast-iron

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 that this building is the only one in the terrace to retain its original fenestration. (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 8, by far the largest house in the terrace, was Joseph Hamilton, whose two-storey house measured 12 yards by six and had a two-storey return measuring 5 x 4 with a single-storey outbuilding, 6 x 3. The house was leased from Dunbar McMaster & Co and was valued at £10. Subsequent tenants were Thomas McCullough (1872) Paul Sayder (1896) and at the time of the 1901 census the house was vacant. By 1903 the occupier was Ed McCall and in 1904, Thomas Sprott. Sprott was followed by Harold McMaster (1909) and in 1910 by David Houston who was still resident at the time of the 1911 census. The census describes him as a grocery manager living with his wife and son and a boarder who was a grocer’s apprentice. The building is not listed in valuation records or the census as a shop but it may be that the business was carried on in the house itself. The Houstons were followed by William J Thompson (1914) and David M Walker (1917). No further tenants are listed in Annual Revisions. The house backing onto the rear of number 9 was incorporated into number 8 Anne Street.

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
9. Belfast Newsletter, 16th June 1882

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
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A two-storey four-bay end-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. Much of the original character has survived. The house backing onto the rear of number 10 has been incorporated into this dwelling.