Llanwddyn

By the mid-19th century the village of Llanwddyn consisted of thirty seven houses, a church and two chapels, three pubs and several shops. The population of the parish had dropped from 668 in 1831 to 443 in 1871. In 1873 the local vicar, Reverend Thomas H. Evans, published a mass of information about Llanwddyn in Volume VI of the Montgomeryshire Collections. He described the abundance of water with, for example, one third of the valley being regularly under water during the winter. In 1877 the expanding English city of Liverpool identified the Vyrnwy Valley as a suitable site for a reservoir to supply fresh water to its citizens. A parliamentary bill was drawn up to authorise the…