The Weston Aqueduct is an aqueduct operated by the

Massachusetts Water Resources Authority The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) is a public authority in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that provides wholesale drinking water and sewage services to certain municipalities and industrial users in the state, primarily in th ...

(MWRA). Now part of the MWRA backup systems, it was designed to deliver water from the

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 ...

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 ...

to the

Weston Reservoir The Weston Reservoir is part of the greater Boston water supply maintained by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. It is located in central Weston, with its principal public access point on Ash Street. Until the 1960s, the Weston Reservo ...

Weston Weston may refer to: Places Australia * Weston, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra * Weston, New South Wales * Weston Creek, a residential district of Canberra * Weston Park, Canberra, a park Canada * Weston, Nova Scotia * W ...

. The aqueduct begins at the Sudbury Dam, and passes through the towns of Southborough,

, Wayland, and Weston. In 1990, the route, buildings and bridges of the aqueduct were added to 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 ...

as the Weston Aqueduct Linear District.

History

The Weston Aqueduct was built early in the 20th century during the third phase of the evolution 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, now administered by the

(MWRA). During this phase, the other major elements of the water supply included the Sudbury Dam and

Reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

, and the

Wachusett Aqueduct The Wachusett Aqueduct is a secondary aqueduct that carries water from the Wachusett Reservoir to the John J. Carroll Water Treatment Plant at Walnut Hill in Marlborough, Massachusetts. It is part of the public water supply system for the commu ...

and

. The purpose of the aqueduct and Weston Reservoir were to channel water to the suburbs north of Boston via

Spot Pond Spot Pond is a lake in Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. The pond is within the Middlesex Fells Reservation, a Massachusetts state park. It is almost entirely located within the boundaries of Stoneham, Massachusetts. Spot Po ...

in Stoneham. The aqueduct was built between 1901 and 1903, under the supervision of Frederic P. Stearns, the chief engineer of the MWRA predecessor, the Metropolitan Water Board. The buildings that shelter the aqueduct's above-ground elements were 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 ...

. The landscaping of the aqueduct's open channel was (along with other elements of the Weston Reservoir) designed by the

Olmsted Brothers The Olmsted Brothers company was a landscape architectural firm in the United States, established in 1898 by brothers John Charles Olmsted (1852–1920) and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (1870–1957), sons of the landscape architect Frederick Law ...

. The functions of the Weston Aqueduct and Reservoir have been taken over by 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 in 1941, and the MetroWest Water Supply Tunnel, completed in 2003. They continue to be held by the MWRA as emergency-use facilities along with the

Chestnut Hill Reservoir Chestnut Hill Reservoir is a reservoir created in 1870 on existing marshes and meadowland to supplement the city of Boston's water needs, located in its namesake neighborhood of Chestnut Hill. A 1.56 mile jogging loop abuts the reservoir. Chestnu ...

and

Sudbury Aqueduct The Sudbury Aqueduct is an aqueduct in Massachusetts. It runs for from Farm Pond at Waverly Street in Framingham to Chestnut Hill Reservoir in Boston’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood. A later built extension main runs from the Farm Pond gateh ...

Description

The aqueduct is a water channel that runs mostly underground, through a structure that is about high and wide. The cross section is roughly horseshoe-shaped, with a concrete base, side walls lined in brick, and an unlined concrete arch. There are two chambers where water flow through the aqueduct is metered: both are located in

, and consist of a concrete substructure, on top of which stands a small building housing equipment. These are square, made of ashlar granite, with predominantly orange coloring, and pink-gray quoins. There are two siphon sections where the aqueduct cross low spots in the terrain. The western of these crosses 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 ...

, and consists of a steel pipe in length that is built over the river as an arch mounted on stone abutments ; the eastern one crosses Happy Hollow and under

Massachusetts Route 126 Route 126 is a north–south state highway in Massachusetts. Its southern terminus is a continuation of Rhode Island Route 126 by Woonsocket, Rhode Island and its northern terminus is at Route 2 and Route 2A in Concord. Along the way it i ...

, and is long. At each end of the siphons stands a control house that is square, styled similarly to the metering chambers. At the Weston end of the aqueduct is a channel chamber, a hip-roofed structure from which the flow into the open channel can be regulated. The open channel is feet long and about wide, and is lined with riprap. The open channel is spanned by the Ash Street Bridge, a concrete arch bridge faced in stone. The Weston Reservoir was carefully designed by the Olmsted Brothers to appear natural; the final element of the aqueduct is the terminal chamber near the reservoir outlet, from which distribution pipes channel the water onward. The building housing the terminal chamber is larger and more elaborate than the other structures, but is similarly styled.

References

External links

Online Historic Water System Photos and Plans
at mass.gov {{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Historic districts in Middlesex County, Massachusetts Historic districts in Worcester County, Massachusetts Aqueducts in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Framingham, Massachusetts Southborough, Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Wayland, Massachusetts Weston, 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 Aqueducts on the National Register of Historic Places Transportation buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Stoneham, Massachusetts Crossings of the Charles River Aqueducts in Middlesex County, Massachusetts Transportation buildings and structures in Worcester County, Massachusetts

History

Description

See also

References

External links