I hope this will be one of my shorter posts, with the main purpose to highlight a very enjoyable, and affordable, day to be had in mid-Wales.

The Elan Valley is the name for a group of manmade reservoirs and dams built between 1893 and 1952, using the river Elan or river Claerwen as their sources. Perhaps controversially, the dams were built to provide water to the English city of Birmingham during a period of rapid growth for the area. Today, the dams are managed by Welsh Water and combined has a total volume of just under a MILLION cubic metres!

Visiting in December 2025, we didn’t want to risk not doing everything we wanted to do in one visit, so booked a stay in nearby Rhayader for one night. If visiting from probably anywhere in Wales, this is not necessary if visiting in the longer-daylight months, and if you set off early enough, any time of year to be honest.

We didn’t mind paying for accommodation as this little trip was in lieu of a usual holiday at this time of year (we were going to Disney and Universal Orlando in April), although looking back it was £100 that didn’t have to be spent. We stayed in Cadwgan House (link) and the flat was independently owned and rather lovely. Apart from that, and the resulting Chinese takeaway for tea, our only expense was petrol and a few snacks for a picnic.

Some helpful bits…

From Newport it was roughly 70 miles and took two hours. Luckily, with work, I frequently drive up to nearby Newtown and further north, so am very familiar with the route. The roads to get around the various sights were better than expected although a little narrow in places. It’s nothing to be scared of but use your satnav. Similarly, the walking path terrain ranges from easy to very easy. There are some climbs uphill if you want to visit the top of dams, but most of the sights are perfectly viewable from inside/outside your car so its worth a trip for those less mobile. Talking of mobile… my phone signal was indifferent to normal for me, personally.

From the south, you could also add to your trip a drive by Pen y Fan or stops at little towns such as Builth Wells or Llandrindod Wells.

You’ll be glad to hear that apart from diarising the trip with a few nice photos, I am not going to provide too much text… you can easily find that elsewhere or, better still, consider visiting yourself. I’ve done a few blogs on my wonderful home country of Cymru, so take a look at those too whilst you’re here.

If you’ve already made the decision to make a trip yourself, here’s the list of stops we did in order. It can take some getting used to the names, as I endlessly mixed them up!

• Visitor Centre and Caban Coch dam
• Garreg Ddu dam and Nantgwyllt Church
• Dol Y Mynach dam
• Claerwen dam
• Craig Goch dam
• Pen y Garreg dam

Right then, first up…

Visitor Centre and Caban Coch dam.

The visitor centre was well signposted a good few miles before reaching the visitor centre, which offers ample parking, toilets, information counter, a café and considerable souvenir shop. Parking at the time was £2.50 for 2 hours, which was good. After popping to the loo we had an early picnic lunch in the car.

The visitor centre is a 2-minute walk to the foot of Caban Coch, but it is well worth the hike up the hill to the side of the dam for a view of the reservoir. The first of many times I found it mystifying those there can be a body of water high up and empty space on the other side. If you don’t want to walk up the side of the hill, there is also another car park at the top!

From the top of Caban Coch, 37 meters higher up than the visitor centre, you can actually walk 20-minutes each way to our next stop. The path is very accessible and popular with cyclists and joggers, separate from the road.

Garreg Ddu dam and Nantgwyllt Church.

We walked here from the first stop but there is a small (free) parking area by the Anglican Church. Of the all dams, this one confused me a little as it just looked like a bridge! I don’t want to sound disappointed as it was nonetheless picturesque. I’ve since learnt that the dam is actually underwater?? Tell you what, why I don’t I link to the Elan Valley website, where you can get more technical info than I’m willing to provide! Link here.

Crossing the dam/bridge by foot, we were presented with Nantgwyllt Church ahead of us. This is open to visit and make sure you sign the visitor book! A wonderful stop for a photo as it looks out onto the bridge and reservoir. This was built shortly after work on the dams first started to replace the only one, which will forever be submerged. It is worth remembering that to build the dams, 18 dwellings that consisted of housing, farms and a school supported a community, who were told their village would be no more. This isn’t the first instance of Wales being drowned to supply England, things were to get much worse in 1965. Research “Cofiwch Dryweryn” for more on that.

Dol Y Mynach dam

As nice as the walk to the above stop was, we did then have to walk back to the visitor centre, to then drive over the bridge and past the church! As each stop on the trip are within minutes of each other, it was no bother as we found a parking bay (I think) at the side of the road to walk to Dol y Mynach.

Along with Garreg Ddu, this too didn’t look like the majestic structures of the other dams. There is a simple reason for this one, it is unfinished. You can still walk down a somewhat bumpy and muddy path to actually walk on top of the rocks themselves. It’s worth noting this area is very secluded so you don’t want to be putting yourself in danger.

Claerwen dam

Back to the big time now. Claerwen has a large car park and its own toilets. You park at the bottom of the concrete dam and look in awe at the sheer size of the construction. It is 56 metres high and 355 metres long! Similar to our first stop, you can climb the hill to the top here, but it is a lot more arduous that Caban Coch, so feel free to drive up. I return back to my contemplation of how physics can allow such huge volumes of water to be contained with a glorified brick wall. An outstanding piece of engineering.

After Claerwen, we knew it would be getting dark rather soon, so headed back 20 minutes or so into Rhayader to our accommodation for the night. It’s more of a village if anything. There’s a couple of pubs, shops and takeaways though. My Singapore-fried rice was bloody awful though, borderline inedible. As we visited on a Sunday just after Christmas we didn’t expect anywhere to do Sunday lunch at this time of the evening, but pub grub would be your best bet any other time.

We did however have a pleasant night’s sleep, refreshed to finish off the sights before driving home.

Craig Goch dam

Setting off on a different route to visit the northern-most of the dams, this took us through narrower lanes that would have eventually ended up in Aberystwyth I believe. Craig Goch is the highest upstream dam and was different in that we approached it from the top end. There was no car park per se, but room for a good few cars to park up and toilets.

If you’ve been paying attention to my photo’s, you should notice the difference between this and others… flowing water! Now the construction of the dam were as majestic as the others (maybe a bit nicer), but the addition of water tipping over the edge at some pace, down to the narrow valley some 26 meters below instantly made it my favourite of the collection. We spent more time here than any of the others and if you’re passing by the wider area and can only fit one in, choose this one.

Pen y Garreg dam

Further downstream was our final dam, Pen y Garreg. A visit to the base of this one entailed parking up and a ten minute walk along bumpy/muddy terrain. Having had the excitement of water flowing earlier, this was in comparison a slight disappointment. It is more secluded and tricky to walk up to the top. This dam is unusual in that it houses an access tunnel and is open to the public on certain days of the year.

After leaving the dam in the car, there were a number of animal sculptures carved out of wood that can be seen whilst driving, but I’m not sure if they are a permanent feature.

From here, the road home did take us back to the visitor centre once more. This was ideal to take in the views one last time and use the facilities.

There we go, what a set of amazing sights we were able to enjoy just a few hours from home. I cannot recommend a visit enough, and it won’t be too long before we visit again. Thanks for reading!