Development of the Guild Square Area

In 1872, when Norwood was established, the Guild Square area had been settled with homes and businesses for well over a hundred years, although much of the area was undeveloped farmland until the mid-1880s.  Not too far from here Aaron Guild left his plow in the field, picked up his musket and went to fight against the invading British Militia with other Minutemen. Where the library sits today, was the first meetinghouse site, and records show that the Dean, Guild, Everett, and Chickering families had their farms in the area.

An 1831 Map of the South Parish, although not a detailed map, it indicates the village was quite small – it had a church, a cemetery, several squares indicating houses and possibly small businesses and a school, which was in the Guild Square area.

By 1851, a map of the Guild Square area shows the furniture factory of Willard Everett took a commanding spot to the neighborhood, the school sits prominently in the area, and the little squares indicating homes and businesses are labeled. Here live the families of Moses Guild, Mrs. Pratt, M.E. Webb as well as several homes of the Everett and Morse families.

Seven years later, a new map shows the addition of Dr. Fogg who was now practicing medicine here and a small dry goods business operated by Mr. Bramen.

In 1876, a map of the new town of Norwood, show that the Furniture factory was gone, but the schoolhouse remained, Dr. Cragin had built his Walpole Street home.

In 1903, the Sanborn Fire map shows how the area had grown. The Talbot Block had been built, the Congregational Church had built their fourth meetinghouse on the corner of Winter and Walpole Streets, the Methodists had a new church and the Morrill Library had opened its doors.

                 

In the late 1980s/early 1990s the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System. (MACRIS) designated the bulk of this neighborhood as a historical area of significance, naming it the “Winter Street Area.” The survey notes that approximately 80% of the structures in this area date from 1885 to 1910. There are eleven historic homes on Winter Street (between Walpole and Washington Streets), and all of them are on this survey.

Over the years, the streetscape of this neighborhood has changed and evolved. A school operated in this neighborhood for almost 150 years, the last school building is still here, but it has become a medical office, the old Civic buildings are gone as is the Norwood Hospital which had absorbed much of the Civic property. The hospital was torn down in the summer of 2023 to make way for a new modern technologically advanced hospital. There are more shops in the neighborhood, yet Winter Street, “Doctor’s Row,” remains relatively unchanged. For the most part, this neighborhood has always been a mixed-use area – several businesses, a couple of churches, a few stores and quite a few private homes.

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