Wellington Street Apartment House District

This group of brick apartment houses stands on Wellington Street, Irving Street and Jaques Avenue in Worcester. Most were built between 1885 and 1901 and form the densest surviving remnant of a larger apartment district that once stretched from Main Street South to Chandler Street. Wellington Street was largely undeveloped until Thomas J. Barrett built a two-storey Queen Anne brick house there in 1885. Three- and four-storey owner-occupied apartment houses followed, sharing floor plans with the city's three-deckers and decorated with sandstone trim, arched entries and brickwork. From 1892, with the Columbia, larger buildings on the scale of those on Main Street were put up by builder-developers as income properties. These include the Knowlton and the Florence. The district also contains the First Freewill Baptist Church, a Gothic-style brick and granite building from 1888 designed by George Adams, with its original slate, stained glass and terracotta tiles. An 1851 Greek Revival house survives as well.