Woodland, Newton Highlands, and Newton Centre Railroad Stations, and Baggage and Express Building

Three railroad stations and a baggage building in Newton, Massachusetts, survive from a group of twelve built for the Boston and Albany Railroad's Highlands Branch in the mid-1880s. Woodland (1884), Newton Highlands (1885) and Newton Centre (1886) were designed through the office of Henry Hobson Richardson, with landscaping by Frederick Law Olmsted that no longer survives. Only Woodland is known to be Richardson's own work; the other two are believed to have been completed by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge after his death. Built of rough-cut stone under broad, low slate hip roofs, the buildings show Richardsonian Romanesque character. The Highlands Branch helped Newton grow as a commuter suburb of Boston. Most other stations were torn down after the MBTA took over service. Woodland has been used for golf club storage since the 1950s, while the other stations and the baggage building have found commercial and transit uses. The three stations are significant as the remaining examples of the original twelve.