Memorial to the Dolgarrog Dam Disaster of 2 November 1925

Description

The newly rebuilt memorial commemorates the night of 2 November 1925,when Dolgarrog was devastated by the bursting of the Eigiau and Coedty dams which sent a torrent of water and boulders crashing down on the village. The ensuing flood killed ten adults and six children but many more watching a film in the Assembly Rooms survived; had the building not been on higher ground, the death toll could have been far greater. It is estimated that up to 350 million cubic metres of water were released which hit the village at about 9.30pm. There were 200 men working in the aluminium smelter at the time and they all escaped.
The new memorial names the sixteen lives lost and is greatly improved on the 60th anniversary plaque unveiled in 1985.

The new £60,000 trail was opened in 2004, explaining the tragic story to walkers visiting the area. It follows the route the water took down towards the village, past the boulders brought down from the damaged dams. The Eigiau dam which precipitated the landslide that destroyed the Coedty dam was never repaired, instead a tunnel was built connecting it to Llyn Cowlyd (completed in 1928) and its spillway was lowered reducing the water level. The Coedty dam and its pipeline washed away by the disaster was rebuilt by March 1927. The restarted smelter continued in operation until 1 March 1944, when supplies of Canadian metal became readily available to the Ministry of Aircraft Production making Dolgarrog's smelting operation obsolete. Rolling operations on the site continued for another 63 years until the aluminium plant closure in 2007.