Newbury Historic District

Forty buildings around the Upper Green and along High Road form the center of Newbury, Massachusetts. Nearly a third date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including the Tristram Coffin House of 1654, the Dr. Peter Toppan House of 1697, the Swett-Ilsley House begun in 1670 and the Short House of the early eighteenth century. Later houses show Federal, Greek Revival, mansard-roofed Victorian and Colonial Revival styles. Civic and institutional buildings include the First Parish Church of 1869, the Woodbridge School of 1898 and the Town Hall. The green was laid out in 1642 as a training ground and hosted a troop encampment under Benedict Arnold in 1775. The First Parish Burying Ground holds graves of early settlers. Three of the houses are now museums. Together the buildings show how the town developed from its first settlement in the 1640s through the twentieth century, and most keep a modest domestic scale.