Lake Cochituate is a body of water in Natick, Wayland, and Framingham, Massachusetts, United States. Originally a reservoir serving Boston, it no longer serves that function, and is now a local recreational resource and home to Cochituate State Park.DescriptionLake Cochituate consists of three linked ponds known as North Pond, Middle Pond, and South Pond. A large peninsula in South Pond is the site of the US Army Soldier Systems Center, and the eastern shore holds the trails of Pegan Cove Park. Middle Pond is home to Cochituate State Park, which includes boat ramps and a picnic area. North Pond is the site of both Wayland Town Beach and Saxonville Beach of Framingham.On the edge of Middle Pond is the new MathWorks Lakeside campus. This building was originally a Carling brewery, built in 1957. A partially deconstructed freight train track runs alongside sections of the lake, which brought supplies to both the Carling Brewery, the ITT Continental Bakery, and a Green Stamps warehouse located on the edge of the lake in an area formerly called an industrial park. A proposed rail trail will run along the lake on this track's right-of-way, from downtown Natick to Saxonville, a section of Framingham.The three ponds and their connector ponds cover a total of 625acre. South of Cochituate, the 40acre Dug Pond is the site of Natick High School. The Lake Cochituate watershed, part of the Sudbury River watershed, encompasses 17sqmi in Natick, Wayland, Framingham, Ashland, and Sherborn. This in turn is part of the Concord River and Merrimack River watersheds. Cochituate is also the name of a village in Wayland.
