Towne Street Historic District

Towne Street Historic District is a small cluster of four houses and their outbuildings on a tree-lined rise at the edge of the Attleborough Falls mill village in North Attleborough, Massachusetts. The houses at 224, 240, 251 and 260 Towne Street date from about 1835 to about 1880 and remain in residential use. The earliest, the Stanley House and the Thomas Wilmarth House, face south in the manner of traditional New England farmhouses. The later Miller and E.B. Wilmarth Houses face the road, as village houses typically do. This contrast in orientation and lot size shows how a rural area gave way to village growth during the period when jewelry manufacturing drove the local economy. The buildings range from Greek Revival and Federal forms to Queen Anne and Colonial Revival additions. The district was recognized for its community development and architecture, and open land around it preserves its rural character.