Spring Hill, Somerville, Massachusetts
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Spring Hill Historic District
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View of Atherton Street, including Somerville's Round House
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| Location | Somerville, Massachusetts |
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| Coordinates | 42°23′7″N 71°6′29″W / 42.38528°N 71.10806°WCoordinates: 42°23′7″N 71°6′29″W / 42.38528°N 71.10806°W |
| Architect | Loring, George A. |
| Architectural style | Mid 19th Century Revival, Queen Anne, Shingle Style |
| MPS | Somerville MPS |
| NRHP reference # | 89001222 |
| Added to NRHP | September 18, 1989 |
Spring Hill is the name of a ridge in the central part of the city of Somerville, Massachusetts, and the residential neighborhood that sits atop it. It runs northwest to southeast, roughly bounded by Highland Avenue, Somerville Avenue, Elm Street, and Willow Avenue. Summer Street runs along the hill's crest.
Spring Hill is a drumlin, one of many such hills in the Boston area composed of material deposited as glaciers of the epoch receded.
Historically agricultural in character, Spring Hill was sparsely developed until the mid-19th century. Present-day Central, Lowell, and Cedar Streets trace their origins to the mid-17th century, but few other roads broke the open space. Most development took place in the neighborhood between the 1840s and early 1900s. Spring Hill has a fine selection of Greek Revival houses and Victorians including Second Empires, Italianates, Gothic Revivivals and Queen Annes. Large houses were built in the neighborhood as well as smaller workers' houses and attached houses. In the early 1900s triple-deckers filled in the remaining land.
Part of the Spring Hill neighborhood was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. The Spring Hill Historic District stretches from Summer, Central, Atherton and Spring Streets.
Spring Hill was first developed in 1843 by George O. Brastow, an influential businessman who later became the first mayor of Somerville. He lotted one of Somerville's first residential subdivisions on the hill's south side between Central and Belmont Streets. Several original houses from this development remain on Atherton Street and off Harvard Street. The well-known Boston surveyor Alexander Wadsworth helped Brastow successfully lay out this subdivision to attract substantial homes on country estates for privileged suburbanites that held proprietary and managerial jobs. Its desirability was reinforced by expansive views of Cambridge and Boston, as well as easy access to Boston via the Fitchburg Railroad. Brastow's subdivision is the centerpiece of the Spring Hill Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
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