History

During the Industrial Revolution Birmingham, like many cities in the UK was experiencing a massive increase in population as people left the countryside for cities to work. However, although it has three rivers, these were not large enough to supply everyone with clean water for drinking and to avoid the waterborne diseases that were rampant, such as cholera and typhoid. A solution had to be found.

“Wells or Wales” was the newspaper headline at the time. Birmingham Corporation elected to build a series of dams in the Elan Valley to supply fresh drinking water to Birmingham. There are three main reasons why they chose the Elan and Claerwen Valleys:

– 1836mm of rain on average per year, compared to Birmingham’s 660mm.

– Glaciated landscapes with deep wide valleys, made from impermeable mudstone, perfect to store water.

– The Foel Tower (where water is extracted by Garreg Ddu dam) is 52m above Frankley Reservoir, which means it can travel entirely by gravity.

An Act of Parliament was passed in 1892 which allowed Birmingham Corporation to buy the 72 square miles of the Elan and Claerwen Valleys, with work starting the following year in 1893. The first phase was to build four and a half dams: Caban Coch, Garreg Ddu, Pen y Garreg and Craig Goch in the Elan Valley and the foundations of Dol y Mynach in the Claerwen Valley. This was completed in July 1904 and opened by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.

Phase Two would have seen completion of Dol y Mynach and the creation of two additional dams in the Claerwen Valley but was delayed and in the end abandoned by the onset of World War I and II. However by then, technology had advanced so much that a larger dam could be built. The Claerwen dam was built from 1946 to 1952 and opened by Queen Elizabeth II in October 1952 in her first engagement in Wales.

The area around the Visitor Centre was originally a workshop (if you look up while you’re in the exhibition hall and gift shop, you’ll notice the original pulleys and chains). It opened as a Visitor Centre in 1985, was extended in 1997 and renovated in 2020.