Originally known as District One School and built circa 1830, it was once part of a network of 10 schoolhouses throughout the town. Earlier schools had met in private homes where the lady of the house was the teacher. This gabled structure is built on a solid granite foundation, with a side entrance and transom windows over the doorway.

The site selection in 1741 set the pattern for clustering major town buildings around a common area, but a church was not completed here until 1770. It was funded by selling pews while the town would pay the cost of the steeple. That steeple toppled during the 1938 hurricane and was replaced in 1941, funded by donations and other monies.

Across the road and a few steps to the north of the Universalist Church stands the Paige Memorial Library, another Classical Revival municipal building. It was built in 1909 on the footprint of Hardwick High School, which preceded this building on this site but was destroyed by fire.

The General Store and Post Office was built in 1896 by Herbert Emmons, who bought the lot from Frazier Paige. This building is the most recent commercial structure on the common.

This Italianate-style building replaces a brick structure built in 1828 after part of the Congregational Society withdrew from that church. It was built in 1860, patterned after a church in Athol, MA, and designed by the same architect, Elbridge Boyden.