Local residents may sometimes take one of Norwood’s many treasures for granted as they pass by every day, but Norwood’s Town Hall is definitely worthy of a second, third, or fourth look. 

The Norwood Memorial Municipal Building (Norwood Town Hall) is a Late Gothic Revival building that was built in 1927-1928 and is made of Weymouth, seamed-face granite. For those not familiar, it may often be mistaken it for a church or a former church, but it has always been Norwood’s central municipal hub. Its stained-glass  windows do not depict saints, but local patriot Aaron Guild.

Guild’s significance is explained by an inscription on the Aaron Guild Memorial Stone, dedicated in 1903, which stands outside the Norwood Morrill Memorial Library. The inscription reads:

NEAR THIS SPOT

CAPT. AARON GUILD

ON APRIL 19, 1775

LEFT PLOW IN FURROW, OXEN STANDING

AND DEPARTING 

FOR LEXINGTON

ARRIVED IN TIME TO FIRE UPON

THE RETREATING BRITISH.

Guild and his oxen are featured in the town seal.

Another significant feature of the Norwood Town Hall building is its 50-bell carillon tower housing the Walter F. Tilton Memorial Carillon, one of only nine carillons in Massachusetts and the seventh-largest in the United States.

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

A Re-Dedication Ceremony took place on November 11, 1998. For more information on the ceremony, visit www.norwoodma.gov/government/town_manager/town_hall_re-dedication_program.php.