Birmingham's Water Supply

Spectacular views of the Pen-y-Garreg and Craig Goch dams in the Elan Valley in Powys, Mid Wales, newly built to quench Brum's thirst for water.

This series of picturesque views of the Pen-y-Garreg and Craig Goch dams in the Elan Valley in Powys, Mid Wales, pays tribute to one of the great engineering feats of the early 20th century: the damming of an entire Welsh valley to supply the burgeoning city of Birmingham with fresh water. The credits are long lost, but this film could well have featured in a newsreel or topical cinemagazine.

Before the dams were completed in 1904, Eustace Tickell, the civil engineer who supervised the construction of Pen-y-Garreg, drew sketches of the valley landscape soon to be inundated with millions of gallons of water. He compiled the drawings in a book, 'The Vale of Nantgwilt: A Submerged Valley', "to commemorate scenes in one of the most charming valleys in Great Britain. Scenes which are soon to be lost for ever, submerged beneath the waters."