The Branford Center Historic District is an irregularly-shaped 250 acres (101.2 ha) historic district

Historic district (United States)

In the United States, a historic district is a group of buildings, properties, or sites that have been designated by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided...

 in Branford, Connecticut

Branford, Connecticut

-Landmarks and attractions:Branford has six historic districts that are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places . These include buildings in Federal, Arts and Crafts, and Queen Anne styles of architecture...

's Branford Center neighborhood. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1987. In 1987, the district included 557 contributing buildings out of a total of 706 buildings in the district, including garages, carriage houses, and other structures. It includes two other contributing sites: the Center Cemetery and the Saint Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery. The district boundaries were drawn to exclude modern construction such as the Branford High School

Branford High School (Connecticut)

Branford High School is a public high school in Branford, Connecticut. It currently has about 1,250 students in grades 9-12.Former principal, Dr. Edmund Higgins, retired at the end of the 2007-2008 school year. During his tenure, Higgins was instrumental in the school's adoption of performance...

 and to exclude older buildings that did not retain their "historic architectural integrity".

"Relatively little remains in Branford Center that evokes its distant 17th- and early 18th century past." The district, instead, includes remnants of late 19th and early 20th century industrial, commercial, and residential history.

Industry is represented in buildings of the Malleable Iron Fittings Company and the Atlantic Wire Company.

Architectural styles represented include Greek Revival architecture

Greek Revival architecture

The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...

, Queen Anne architecture, and Colonial Revival architecture

Colonial Revival architecture

The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style, garden design, and interior design movement in the United States which sought to revive elements of Georgian architecture, part of a broader Colonial Revival Movement in the arts. In the early 1890s Americans began to value their own...

, Italianate architecture

Italianate architecture

The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...

, Federal architecture

Federal architecture

Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the United States between c. 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815. This style shares its name with its era, the Federal Period. The name Federal style is also used in association with furniture design...

, Gothic Revival architecture

Gothic Revival architecture

The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

, Second Empire architecture, Colonial architecture, Tudor Revival architecture and Bungalow architecture. These are mostly vernacular buildings. Of buildings designed by professional architects, the most significant is the "classically inspired, monumental 1893 James Blackwell Memorial Library", designed by S. S. Beman of Chicago. The library incorporates Tennessee marble and features a domed, octagonal rotunda.

Government buildings include the Branford Town Hall, from 1857, a Greek Revival building.

Religious institution buildings in the district include:

• the First Baptist Church, from 1840, at 975 Main Street
• St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church's rectory from c. 1925 (contributing) and church from 1974 (non-contributing)
• First Congregational Church, at 1009 Main Street, a brick and stone building from 1843 in Greek Revival style, with Italianate addition from later in the century