On the edge of Snowdonia National Park , Lake Vyrnwy is set amidst the remote and beautiful Berwyn Mountains. Its stone-built dam, built in the 1880s, was the first of its kind in the world. It was built for the purpose of supplying Liverpool and Merseyside with fresh water. It flooded the head of the Vyrnwy Valley and submerged the small village of Llanwddyn.
It was the first large stone-built dam in the United Kingdom, and is built partly out of great blocks of Welsh slate. . The dam is 144 ft high from the bottom of the valley, and 128 ft thick at the base; it is 1,171 ft long and has a road bridge running along the top. It is decorated with over 25 arches and two small towers (each with four corner turrets) rising 13 ft above the road surface.
Vyrnwy was the first dam to carry water over its crest instead of in a channel at the side. At the bottom of the dam is a body of water known as the Stilling Basin, this is necessary to absorb the energy when the water flows over the crest and into the valley, and stops the water from eroding the foundations of the dam.
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