August 2025
In 1888, the shattered remains of a once thriving village in mid-Wales were enveloped by the rising waters of a new lake. Formed by the damming of the river Vyrnwy (Afon Efyrnwy), the reservoir had been built to supply the needs of a rapidly expanding Liverpool. At 1,121 acres, Lake Vyrnwy was at the time the largest reservoir in Europe and is still acclaimed as a feat of Victorina engineering.
Its construction was, of course, controversial. Initially planned by the Liverpool Corporation as a 4-year, £1.5 million project, the reservoir and associated infrastructure eventually took 12 years to complete and cost over £2 million. It is perhaps reassuring to know that large-scale capital projects running over time and over budget are not just a malaise of modern Britain.
The Vyrnwy valley before it was flooded by the waters of the reservoir (left) and the residents of the Llanwddyn before their village was destroyed with dynamite.
The partially destroyed houses of Llanwddyn before the waters began to rise.
Lake Vyrnwy’s iconic Gothic-style straining tower.
The river Vyrnwy just downstream of the dam wall.
Downloadable Vyrnwy fact sheet.
The destruction of Llanwddyn
Forty-four workers died in the construction phases of Lake Vyrnwy and in preparation, the homes, farmhouses, pubs and church of the village of Llanwddyn were demolished with dynamite. Its inhabitants were moved to a new settlement, along with the occupants of over a hundred graves who were reinterned in its church.
According to some, this was a blessing. One Liverpool councilor, presumably trying to extoll the virtues of a scheme that would improve the appalling sanitation in his city, was reported to have said that Llanwddyn was “the most God-forsaken place in the world.” Coming from a resident of a slum-ridden Victorian industrial city, that was saying something.
There is some debate as to whether the inhabitants of Llanwddyn were happy with the arrangement. Certainly, the new houses built for them by the Liverpool Corporation higher in the valley were an improvement and they were compensated for their trouble.
But there were also reports of a local petition against the Liverpool Corporation’s plans, perhaps a tactic to strengthen their compensatory bargaining position. It is more likely, however, that a parallel petition against the scheme being discussed by the town of Cheltenham, worried about the scheme’s effects on water flows further down the Severn, would have carried more weight if it had been lodged.
In the years after it disappeared, Llanwddyn gained a mystical reputation, with boaters on the lake claiming to be able to see the outline of the village through the depths and its ghostly remains occasionally reappearing from the lake in dry periods. The writer A.G. Bradley, in his 1898 book “Highways and Byways in North Wales” also wrote about a large glacial stone in Llanwddyn that was dynamited along with the “cheerful home-steads”, much to the horror of the locals.
According to Bradley, in many parts of Wales, these stones were said to contain evil spirits. Perhaps with a little artistic licence, he wrote: ”the natives of Llanwddyn…….were aghast, and stood afar off shuddering at the sacriligious act, fully expecting the spirit thus rudely robbed of its long home, to go roaring down the valley, seeking whom it might devour.”
The race for Welsh water
Vyrnwy water eventually began to arrive in Liverpool in 1892 and the “success” of the scheme sparked other English cities, equally desperate to satisfy growing populations and solve sanitation problems, to start searching for potential water sources in Wales.
Birmingham eventually settled on the damming of the Elan Valley in the Wye catchment, having initially looked at another Severn tributary, the Teme. But
London too was eying up Wales for water, and the southern valleys in particular.
An article in the North Wales Observer in July 1892 wrote about London’s moves on Welsh water resources, stating that “…it is not to be assumed that the store of water in Wales is inexhaustible.” The author claimed that if Vyrnwy was possible for Liverpool, then there was no reason why a lake of five thousand acres could not be created and the water transported three hundred miles to London.
By then, however, Welsh opposition to Acts of Parliament that flooded valleys in Wales for the benefit of English cities were gathering steam. In December 1894, the South Wales Daily News ran an article claiming that London’s search for water in Wales was futile. With the best supplies in mid Wales already taken and the water resources further south needed for the heavy industry of the Valleys, the city would have to look elsewhere.
Afon Efyrnwy
Such is the history, profile and aesthetic qualities of the lake that it is easy to overlook the important river that flows out of it. With its sources above the reservoir on the Berwyn Mountains, the river Vyrnwy exits the dam wall and flows in a general easterly direction, joining the Severn some 40 miles later. The meaning of its Welsh name Efyrnwy is unclear but thought originally to derive from a personal name ‘Ebur’ with ‘nwy’ as a suffix.
Along its way, it picks up several tributaries including the Banwy, Cain and Tanat, streams in which much of the recent work to improve the water quality and habitat of the Vyrnwy catchment have taken place. In 2020, the Severn Rivers Trust completed a catchment climate resilience scheme for the Cain and Nant Alan. The trust have also been using funding from Natural Resources Wales and Welsh Government to restore salmon and trout habitat within the Banwy catchment, including its Gam and Cledan tributaries.
Well over a century ago, the story of the Vyrnwy and its reservoir shows that resolving water resource issues is not just a dilemma of modern day. Even in the Victorian era, when the UK’s population was about half of what it is now, when human rights were less well observed and when all law-making was done in Westminster, the creation of new water supplies was still difficult, expensive and controversial. And recent calls for water companies just to get on and resolve the UK’s current water shortages by building new reservoirs appear ever-more simplistic.