Granville Center Historic District

Granville Center, known locally as "The Hill," is a half-mile stretch of Main Road (Route 57) at the geographic center of Granville, Massachusetts. Wood-frame houses with clapboard siding, brick chimneys and stone foundations sit close together beneath tall maples. Federal-style buildings dominate, including the L. Hubbard, Israel Parsons "1800 House" and Joel Root houses, which feature colossal pilasters and Palladian windows. Smaller groups of Greek Revival houses and single Gothic Revival and Queen Anne examples add variety. The 1802 First Church of Christ Congregational was served for decades by Dr. Timothy Mather Cooley. In the early nineteenth century the Center held a lawyer, a doctor, a store and a church. Commerce and industry shifted east to Granville Village by the mid-1800s, partly because of the drum factory's move in 1857. The Center stayed the seat of town government, and a Town Hall was built there in 1927.