The 65-acre (26 ha) area includes the old town common, an early cemetery, and a modest number of non-residential buildings among a larger number of houses.

[2] The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

[1] The focal center of the district is the old town green, and the brick Victorian Gothic First Congregational Church.

The district radiates along these streets, with additional properties on the adjacent sections of Woodland Avenue and Heywood Street, which abut on the common and the old cemetery.

Prominent architect-designed buildings in the district include the Levi Heywood Memorial Library Building, which was, like the First Congregational Church, designed by Fuller & Delano of Worcester, and the Syndicate Block, one of the district's few commercial buildings, which was designed by George Clemence.