Upper Wye and Elan

The Wye above Builth runs through progressively emptier country until it reaches its source on Plynlimon. West of Rhayader the Elan and the Claerwen drain a high plateau that carries almost no permanent settlement and never did carry much.

Which is exactly why Birmingham Corporation chose it.

What to look for

The Elan dams, built between 1893 and 1904 and opened by Edward VII. Four reservoirs in the first phase, Claerwen added in 1952. Farms, two country houses and a chapel went under, and around a hundred people were moved with far less compensation and far less ceremony than the scale of the works suggests.

The aqueduct. Water still runs to Birmingham by gravity across seventy-three miles, and the line of it can be traced across the country to the east.

Abbeycwmhir, north-east of Rhayader, where the Cistercians built a nave longer than any in Wales and never finished it.

Drove roads over the moor towards Ceredigion, and the ruined inns that served them.

Sheepwalks and the ruins of hafodydd, the summer dwellings of a transhumant farming system that persisted here later than in most of Wales.