Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB17/01/020 F

Address :
Former Gate Lodge 1 Ann Street Gilford Craigavon Co Down BT63 6HX

Townland:
Loughans

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Survey 2:
B2

Date of Listing:
25/10/1977 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
House - Terrace

Former Use
Gates/ Screens/ Lodges

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
201/14

IG Ref:
J0624 4876

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

A symmetrical two-bay single-storey former gate lodge, now end-terrace house, built c.1839 and located directly east of Gilford Mill (HB17/01/020A-E), north west of Gilford town centre. Square on plan. Hipped natural slate roof (leaded hips removed) with angled ridge tiles and finial. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods. Walling is painted smooth render with raised quoins and plinth. Windows are replacement timber casements. The principal elevation faces south and is symmetrically arranged with a window to either side of a replacement six-panelled timber door with square-headed over light. The west gable has two blocked up window openings, raised quoins at corner. Flat roof extension to left with lined painted render and blocked up door opening. The north (rear extension) elevation has lined painted render, flat roof, top hung windows and metal rainwater goods. The east gable is abutted by the adjoining building (HB17/01/021B). Setting Situated at the east entrance to Gilford Mill (HB17/01/020A-E), forming part of a terrace of eight on Ann Street. Large rubble stone mill building to rear. Ornate cast iron gates and boundary railings adjacent with square gate posts to match. Arches over pedestrial gates. Roof: Natural slate Walling: Render Windows: Timber RWG: Cast iron

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

The house is a former gate lodge and reading room to 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 into the twentieth centuries. The lodge was built and owned by the company, originally known as Dunbar and Thompson and later trading as Dunbar McMaster & Co Ltd. It was part of a mill complex which was built in the late 1830s and this also appears a likely date for the gate lodge which first appears, uncaptioned, on the second edition OS map of 1858. Bassett’s 1886 Directory appears to show that the building originally had a flat roof, and that the current hipped roof is therefore a later modification, shown in a photograph of the mill complex dating from 1900. (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 to build the mill, and the tail race ran through the land of James Uprichard of Bannvale. The spinning mill, one of the largest in the country at the time, 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. (Logan; Cairns) The gate lodge is not separately listed in valuation records and is included in the valuation of the mill complex itself. The 1901 census notes that the building is the ‘gate lodge of mill’ but it is not inhabited at this date. The building is described as ‘an office’ in the 1911 census. 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 is curretly uninhabited. 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

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A symmetrical two-bay single-storey former gate lodge, now an end-terrace house, built c.1839 and located directly east of Gilford Mill (HB17/01/020). Although altered over the years, the building retains some historic character and is of interest primarily due to its relationship with the mill (HB17/01/020A-E) with which it has group value and its former use as a gate-lodge and reading room.

General Comments

Please note this record has been renumbered it was previously recorded as HB17/01/021 A

Date of Survey

30 August 2011