Southwick Town Hall - Southwick, MA
Posted by: 
neoc1
N 42° 03.198 W 072° 46.291
18T E 684408 N 4658096
The Art Deco Southwick Consolidated School Building is now the Southwick Town Hall, is located at 454 College Highway, Routes 10 and 202, in Southwick, MA.
Waymark Code: WM16G7F
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 07/26/2022
Views: 1
The Southwick Consolidated School Building was constructed in 1928 in the Art Deco style and designed by local architect Malcolm Bennett Harding. The purpose of the building was to consolidate all the one room schoolhouses into a single building. He chose to create a step design suggesting an open book. The central section is set back from the rest of the building and the side wings project out in a series of steps.
When enrollments declined the building was converted into the Town Hall and community center. Presently, it also houses the offices of the town clerk and the public works department.
The central section is three bays wide with two-story high, green, rectangular windows separated by brick columns at each bay. Below the green roof line is a section of light colored stone blocks with bas relief designs at the top of the brick columns and the inscription, in Art Deco lettering:
SOUTHWICK CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL
ERECTED 1928
The central section is flanked by a pair of protruding sections containing the entrances which are recessed within light stone blocks having stylized Ionic capitals at the top corners. The rest of the wings step outwards with brickwork at the bottom and light stone blocks above.
About Southwick, MA
Southwick is a small town in Hamden County, MA that was settled in 1690 and incorporated as a town on November 7, 1770. The population as of the 2020 census was 9,232. To this day it is mostly a farming and residential community with most commercial businesses along College Highway, US Route 202.
In the 19th century Southwick became famous for the manufacture of gunpowder and the growing of shade grown cigar leaf tobacco. The gunpowder mills are gone but the tobacco farms remain. In the early 20th century an industry grew up around harvesting ice from the Congamond Ponds. Ice was shipped to Boston and New York. Today the Congamond Ponds serve as a venue for boating and fishing.
Southwick is governed by an elected board of selectmen.