Marlborough Brook Filter Beds facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Marlborough Brook Filter Beds
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A pond and bridge over a spillway in the filter bed area
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 Location in Massachusetts
Location in the United States
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| Location | Marlborough and Southborough, Massachusetts |
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| Area | 16 acres (6.5 ha) |
| Built | 1895 |
| Architect | Frederick P. Stearns |
| MPS | Water Supply System of Metropolitan Boston MPS |
| NRHP reference No. | 89002286 |
| Added to NRHP | January 18, 1990 |
The Marlborough Brook Filter Beds are old structures built to clean water. They are located near Marlborough and Southborough, Massachusetts, where Marlborough Brook flows into the Sudbury Reservoir. These beds were built in 1895. Their purpose was to make the water from Marlborough and Walker Brooks cleaner. This helped provide better drinking water for Boston and nearby towns. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
What are the Marlborough Brook Filter Beds?
The filter beds cover about 16 acres (6.5 hectares) of land. They are found on the west side of the Sudbury Reservoir. Today, many parts of the beds are covered with plants and trees. They are bordered by Walker Street, Massachusetts Route 85, and Acre Bridge Road.
How the Filter Beds Worked
Water from Marlborough Brook first entered a settling reservoir. This was a 1.5-acre (0.6-hectare) pond. From there, water flowed over a stone and concrete wall. It then went into a channel along the eastern side of the beds.
Special gates called sluiceways controlled the water flow. They directed water into 17 shallow basins. These basins had about 2 feet (0.6 meters) of sand over a tile bed. Water would slowly filter through the sand by gravity. This helped remove dirt and impurities.
Further down, another sluiceway sent water into a larger holding bed. Or, it could go into 10 "natural" beds. These natural beds were made from existing gravel areas.
Why These Beds Were Built
The Sudbury Reservoir was built between 1893 and 1895. It mainly got water from the Sudbury River. But it also received water from smaller streams. Marlborough and Walker Brooks were two of these streams.
Engineers noticed early on that the water from these brooks was not very clean. So, the Metropolitan Water Board designed these filter beds. This group was a predecessor to today's Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA). Their goal was to improve the water quality. The filter beds were finished by 1899.
Only one other place in Boston's water system had similar structures. However, those were later damaged and partly filled in. This makes the Marlborough Brook Filter Beds very special. They are the best-preserved example of this old water cleaning technology.
Today, these filter beds are no longer used. The Sudbury Reservoir is now part of the MWRA's backup water supply system.
