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The poet Shelley spent his honeymoon in buildings now submerged by the waters of the Elan Valley reservoirs, a nine-mile-long string of four lakes built between 1892 and 1903 to supply water to the rapidly growing industrial city of Birmingham, 75 miles east. Although the lakes enhance an already beautiful and idyllic part of the world, the way in which Welsh valleys, villages and farmsteads were seized and flooded to provide water for English cities is something that Welsh nationalists have long protested. The tourist board prefers to advertise the profusion of rare plants and birds that resulted, notably the red kites. From the workaday market town of RHAYADER , ten miles west of Llandrindod Wells, the B4518 heads southwest four miles to ELAN village, a curious collection of stone houses built in 1909 to replace the reservoir constructors' village that had grown up on the site. Just below the dam of the first reservoir, Caban Coch, the Elan Valley Visitor Centre (mid-March to Oct daily 10am-5.30pm; tel 01597/810898) incorporates a tourist office and a permanent exhibition stressing just how awful conditions were in nineteenth-century Birmingham, how rich the wildlife and flora around the lakes is and even how some of the water is now drunk in Wales. Frequent guided walks head off from the centre, and a road tucks in along the bank of Caban Coch to the Garreg Ddu viaduct, where it winds along for four spectacular miles to the vast, rather chilling 1952 dam on Claerwen Reservoir . More remote and less popular than the Elan lakes, Claerwen is a good base for a serious walk from the far end of the dam across eight or so harsh but beautiful miles to the monastery of Strata Florida. Alternatively, you can follow the path that skirts around the northern shore of Claerwen to the lonely Teifi Pools , glacial lakes from which the River Teifi springs. Back at the Garreg Ddu viaduct, a more popular road continues north along the long, glassy finger of Garreg Ddu reservoir, before doubling back on itself just below the awesome Pen-y-garreg dam and reservoir; if the dam is overflowing, the vast wall of foaming water is mesmerizing. At the top of Pen-y-garreg lake, it's possible to drive over the final dam on the system, at Craig Goch . Thanks to its gracious curve, elegant Edwardian arches and neat little green cupola, this is the most photographed of all the dams. ABBEYCWMHIR (Abaty Cwm Hir), seven miles northeast of Rhayader, takes its name from the abbey whose sombre ruins (free access) lie behind the village. Cistercian monks founded the site in  © 2003 by Rough Guides Ltd. as trustee for its Authors. Published by Rough Guides. All rights reserved. Rough Guides name is a trademark of Rough Guides Ltd. Buy the book here!
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1146, planning one of the largest churches in Britain. Destruction by Henry III's troops in 1231 scuppered plans to continue building, but the sparse ruins - a rocky outline of the floor plan - lie in a conifer-carpeted valley alongside a gloomy green lake, lending weight to the site's melancholic associations. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd's body was rumoured to have been buried here, and a new granite slab carved with a Celtic sword lies on the altar to commemorate this last native prince of Wales.
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