6 Bannview Terrace

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey four-bay end-of-terrace house built c1980; in a block replicating a former terrace c1865. Located directly on Dunbar Street northwest of the centre of Gilford.

Historical information

The current house was rebuilt c1980 but was a former mill worker’s dwelling, situated in a terrace of eight houses. Gilford town had begun an extremely rapid growth in population following the opening of the Dunbar McMaster spinning mill in the late 1830s. 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. (Logan) The current houses were not built by Dunbar McMaster & Co but nevertheless formed part of the town’s expansion in the wake of the success of the linen industry and over the years were often inhabited by mill workers.

The original terrace was built between 1864 and 1868 and first appears on the third edition OS map of 1901-2. The terrace was originally built from the north to the south, with the earliest houses dating from c1865 and the last to be built added by 1868. The houses were all valued at £4.10s with the exception of the dwelling over the gateway, which, being smaller, was valued at £2.5s.

These two houses are listed as newly-completed vacant dwellings in 1867, both valued at £4.10s. By 1868, they had been occupied by John Brooks and Russell Simpson, and by 1878 William Little and Sarah McKee. Subsequent tenants were William McKee (1882), Robert Thompson (1893) and James Cummins (1893).

At the time of the 1901 census the two tenants were James Cummins and Alexander McKeown. Cummins was a bleacher living with his wife and two adult children who were working as a flax spreader and flax dresser. The Cummins children were able to read and write but James and his wife were illiterate and James signed with his mark. Alexander McKeown was a thread finisher who lived with his wife and three adult children, a hackler, a thread spooler and a flax spreader. The 1911 census gives the two tenants as McKeown and Rachel Kirk, the mother of seven children between the ages of 1 and 14 and also providing board to a lodger, a general labourer. Rachel Kirk’s older two children were working as a yarn cager and a doffer in the mill, at the ages of 12 and 14. By 1920 one of the houses had been taken over by Mary J Curran and she and Alexander McKeown were the two tenants until at least 1935.

The houses were rebuilt by the Housing Executive c1980.

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/3/48F Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/21/8A-F Annual Revisions (1866-1923)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/21/3A-B Annual Revisions (1923-29)
8. PRONI VAL/12/F/4/12/2 Annual Revisions (1929-30)

Secondary Sources

1. Logan, R A “A Window on the Past, A History of Gilford County Down” Banbridge Chronicle, (n.d.)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A terrace comprising four two-storey four-bay houses built c1980; replicating a former terrace block c1865. As a modern structure it is of no historic interest.

General comments

Please note this record has been renumbered it was previously recorded as HB17/01/027 I & J

This record incorporates house numbers 9 &10 and is now known as 6 Bannview Terrace.