The Sudbury Dam Historic District is a historic district on the southeastern end of

Sudbury Reservoir The Sudbury Reservoir (2.02 square miles) is an emergency backup Boston metropolitan water reservoir in Massachusetts, located predominantly in Southborough and Marlborough, with small sections in Westborough and Framingham. It was created when t ...

off

Massachusetts Route 30 Route 30 is a east–west arterial route, connecting Grafton with Packard's Corner in Boston. Route 30 runs roughly parallel to the Massachusetts Turnpike and Route 9, but unlike those two larger highways, takes a more meandering path fr ...

Framingham Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers with a popul ...

and

Southborough, Massachusetts Southborough is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. It incorporates the villages of Cordaville, Fayville, and Southville. Its name is often informally shortened to Southboro, a usage seen on many area signs and maps, though ...

. The district encompasses the Sudbury Dam (also known as the Fayville Dam for the nearby neighborhood of Southborough), which impounds the reservoir, and an area encompassing several historic structures located below the dam. The area includes water-supply-related structures from three phases of development of the

Greater Boston Greater Boston is the metropolitan region of New England encompassing the municipality of Boston (the capital of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England) and its surrounding areas. The region forms the northern ar ...

water supply system. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1990.

Description

Sudbury Dam was built in 1894 to impound the Stony Brook branch of the

Sudbury River The Sudbury River is a tributary of the Concord River in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 Originati ...

. It has a large earthen embankment in length, and a concrete core wall with a spillway wide. There is a gate chamber, designed by Wheelwright & Haven, located on the dam north of the spillway. At first it regulated the flow out the channel toward Framingham Reservoir No. 3, but it was modified in 1907 to control flow to the

Weston Aqueduct The Weston Aqueduct is an aqueduct operated by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA). Now part of the MWRA backup systems, it was designed to deliver water from the Sudbury Reservoir in Framingham to the Weston Reservoir in Weston. ...

as well, and again in 1916–17 for the provision of hydroelectric power. The facility was used for power generation until the 1970s, when the generation equipment was removed. A storehouse, located just northeast of the dam, was built in 1900 to house wooden stop planks used to regulate flow. This building was converted to house electrical equipment when the hydroelectric facility was built. Below the dam, to the northeast of the channel to Framingham Reservoir No. 3, is the head house for the Weston Aqueduct. Built in 1903, it was designed by

Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge was a successful architecture firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, operating between 1886 and 1915, with extensive commissions in monumental civic, religious, and collegiate architecture in the spirit and style of Henry ...

to harmonize with the existing gate house. Adjacent to this head house is the head house for Shaft #4 of the

Hultman Aqueduct The Hultman Aqueduct forms part of the water supply system of eastern Massachusetts, managed by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA). The aqueduct extends from Southborough to Weston, connecting the Cosgrove Tunnel to the distributi ...

, built 1939–40. The Hultman Aqueduct is a high-pressure underground aqueduct carrying water from

Wachusett Reservoir The Wachusett Reservoir is the second largest body of water in the state of Massachusetts. It is located in central Massachusetts, northeast of Worcester. It is part of the water supply system for metropolitan Boston maintained by the Massachuset ...

to staging facilities closer to Boston, acting as a secondary system since 2003 to the

MetroWest Water Supply Tunnel The MetroWest Water Supply Tunnel (MWWST) is an advanced underground aqueduct that supplies potable water to residents of much of Greater Boston. It is part of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) water supply system, having entered ...

. This head house, also designed to harmonize with the previous buildings, was designed by Densmore, LeClear & Robbins, who also designed similar structures for the systems of the

Quabbin Reservoir The Quabbin Reservoir is the largest inland body of water in Massachusetts, and was built between 1930 and 1939. Along with the Wachusett Reservoir, it is the primary water supply for Boston, to the east, and 40 other cities and towns in Greate ...

. There are also two modern buildings on the site (built in the 1970s) that are not architecturally sympathetic to the others, and a small cluster of 19th century farm buildings that were moved when the dam was built. There are two bridges in the district. The older of the two carries

over the open channel below the dam, and was built in 1898. It is a concrete twin-arch bridge, faced in granite. The second bridge, a single-arch span made of similar materials, carries an access road over the open channel to the Weston Aqueduct head house, and was built in 1902–03.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Historic districts in Framingham, Massachusetts Historic districts in Worcester County, Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Southborough, Massachusetts Dams in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Middlesex County, Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts