Spring Hill Historic District

History

Spring Hill is a ridge in the central part of the city of Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, 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 Pleistocene 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 Revivals 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.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. The official nomination form is linked under Sources.