Nantgwyllt house, lost to the Elan Valley dams scheme, 1889

Description

Nantgwyllt House lay in the lower valley of the River Claerwen, near its meeting point with the Elan River. The poet Shelley had stayed there in 1812 and had tried but failed to secure it as a home to share with his new young wife Harriet. The mistaken belief that the house still remained intact beneath the waters of the Caban coch reservoir inspired a novel of 1932 called 'The house beneath the water' by Francis Brett Young. [Photograph by J. Owen of Newtown.]