Monument Square Historic District

Monument Square in Charlestown is a ring of 47 buildings around the Bunker Hill Monument and its lodge, on the summit of Breed's Hill. Most are brick or stone row houses, no more than four stories, built from the 1840s through the early 1900s in Greek Revival, Italianate, Mansard, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles. Two older frame houses were moved to the square, and a granite high school (1907) and a public library (1912) complete the group. The square was planned in the 1830s when the Bunker Hill Monument Association sold part of the battlefield to raise money to finish the monument. Deed restrictions required masonry houses of three or four floors with a ten-foot setback, giving the area unusual uniformity of scale, materials and detail. Alterations have mostly been confined to the rear, so the streetscapes survive. The district is distinguished from the smaller, more modest buildings around it by its construction quality, arrangement and preservation.