The historic district covers the whole of Nantucket, but the heart of it is the town centre: Main Street with its cobblestones and brick buildings, the streets running off it lined with Federal-era houses in grey shingle and white clapboard, and the wharves where the whaling fleet once tied up. It is one of the best-preserved 19th-century streetscapes in America.
Walking the district rewards unhurried attention. The Hadwen House on Main Street is a Greek Revival mansion open for tours. The Three Bricks — three matching Federal houses built by a whaling merchant for his three sons in the 1830s — face each other across the same block. The town's Quaker heritage is visible in the plain, domestic scale of the architecture: even the grandest houses are reserved by mainland standards.