Chapter 6 Urban intrusion: community in the urban/rural hinterland

Waterworks and the fluidity of community life

Gaining a sense of community life in the nineteenth century can be difficult for the historian, especially in rural areas, as many people could not or did not record their experiences. The diary of John Dickinson, then, provides a rare and valuable insight into how people lived in this period. The diary, published under the title Timble Man: Diaries of a Dalesman, chronicles the life of Dickinson, a resident of the hamlet of Timble in the Washburn Valley, between 1878 and his death in 1911. Dickinson was primarily a mason, but also registered births and deaths within the parish of Fewston, salted bacon for local farmers, worked for the Provincial Insurance company, held a position with Wharfedale Rural District Council, and gauged the volume of rainfall in the reservoirs for Leeds Corporation. Through these numerous occupations, some of which he held at different times during his life, he came into contact with many of the families that lived across the valley, and was in a position to judge the development of rural life during the late nineteenth century.

Although Dickinson did not record many entries on the subject of the reservoirs specifically, he often commented on what he saw as the decline of rural life in the valley. In February 1889, he noted that: ‘rural life is used up and what spirit there is left in old England concentrates in the great towns where all that is best in everything gradually centres’.⁴ This sense of rural decline was linked to nostalgia, a yearning for what was: in this case, the spirit of ‘old England’, an idea taken up by preservationists in the twentieth century. Perceived urban crisis in the late nineteenth century drew a cultural response from some, resulting in a rise in the proliferation of art, music and architecture that married rurality with Englishness.⁵ To some, rural depopulation was emblematic of a cultural shift towards urbanism, which contributed to a remaking of the social fabric of the nation. This strain of thought can be seen in Dickinson’s assessment of rural life, which was also characteristic of the work of local residents like the Reverend Thomas Parkinson.⁶ While the reservoirs are not mentioned as a cause of this decline, their construction will no doubt have been a factor.

Dickinson continued to be preoccupied with the decline of rural life for much of the following decade. In 1897 he wrote:

As regards the immediate neighbourhood the state of the community is very dark and depressing. Farming is very unprofitable, the population is decreasing, the best families and the best men and women migrate to the towns. The consequence is that the hopeful zest and spirit which used to prevail 30 or 40 years ago is dead and life has become little more than a mere idle shuffle.⁷

The idea of rural decline pervaded Dickinson’s life, so much so that by 1900 he and his family had relocated from Timble to Otley, moving closer to his regular places of work. Otley, a small market town in Lower Wharfedale, was the closet urban area to the Washburn Valley. Ironically, Dickinson wrote that: ‘The quiet village life is still in our hearts and the noise and bustle and apparent heartlessness of town life jars on our nerves’.⁸ Dickinson longed for a return to a more vibrant rural life, but had himself contributed to the decline of rural community by moving to an urban area. His rural nostalgia developed from what the Washburn Valley had lost to what he had lost; a more intimate sense of belonging. A continual sense of loss for what had been permeated Dickinson’s writings as he fulfilled his own observation that the best and brightest migrated to urban centres.

Community life, however, continued across the valley during this period and beyond. Although the population decreased throughout the nineteenth century, no doubt aided by the presence of the reservoirs and their impact on villages like Fewston, remaining residents continued to mark important events in the year. These included the annual feasts, held in July in Timble and August in Fewston, a tradition that was also celebrated in nearby Otley and Yeadon in Wharfedale. It is through these events, which highlighted the centrality of religion to community life, that we can see that the impact of the reservoirs was not wholly negative. While festivities often started with a trip to church, there was more to the feast than sermons. Nearby inns were reportedly filled with drinking and dancing, while swingboats and spice stalls among others added a sense of exoticism to the gala ‘at which all the rosy cheeks and pretty faces of the neighbourhood were present, and the usual innocent games […] were indulged in to the delight of everyone present’.⁹ This mirrors the behaviour that took place during other rural festivals such as the Oldham wakes in the early nineteenth century.¹⁰ There was also a game of cricket with a team from nearby Dacre in Nidderdale, an event that mirrored a cricket match at the Yeadon feast, although that game had more glamorous Australian opposition.¹¹ Despite his notion that rural life was dead, John Dickinson often commented on the vibrancy of life in Timble during the July feasts, one of which included two Frenchmen and a dancing bear, followed by dancing and singing until the early hours of the morning.¹² The presence of a dancing bear was another exotic addition, a tangible link between rural life and the culture of the imperial.¹³ It also provided a more sanitised element of entertainment than cockfighting or bull-baiting, key elements of rural festivals during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, thereby maintaining the use of animals for entertainment.¹⁴

The reporting of the Fewston feast in 1881 further highlighted the presence of a local community spirit. Taking place less than a year after the subsidence of Fewston village, the event remained successful, despite the dilapidated state of the area. Indeed, the perilous state of the village caused more visitors than normal to attend, ‘not so much to see the feast, as to look at the subsidence, and gaze upon the beautiful scenery’, emphasising that, even after the main subsidence had ceased, it continued to impact on the area.¹⁵ However, the correspondent was more effusive about the activities that occurred during the evening:

the young folk of the neighbourhood congregated to have a few hours’ enjoyment. Reuben had strung his fiddle, and the votaries of the light [sic] fantastic toe made hot work of it in the large room in the village inn. In a field near the inn was a ‘kissing mill’, which, unlike many mills nowadays, was running overtime.¹⁶

A vibrant community enjoying recreation is presented, drawing euphemistically on the village’s past association with industry to illustrate the point. Despite the damage caused by the subsidence, for this one day at least, the village of Fewston was a dynamic area, deserving of the title of ‘the metropolis of the Washburn Valley’ bestowed on it by the Wharfedale and Airedale Observer.

The vibrancy that was noted in 1881 was not long to last. Only a year later the newspaper reported that the feast was in decline: ‘The proceedings on Monday were unusually quiet. Of roundabouts, swing-boats, or even spice-stalls, there were none’. A lack of entertainment was met with a lack of participation from residents of the area, with the correspondent only noting the participation of ‘two dozen good-looking young men and women […] a few of the elders […] quietly looking on and smoking’.¹⁷ In 1880, the Wharfedale and Airedale Observer claimed: ‘in these degenerate days, when village feasts are fast falling into disrepute, it is some consolation to find that the feast at Fewstone [sic], at all events, remains true to the traditions of the good old days gone by’.¹⁸ Two years later, this consolation had evaporated, with the newspaper noting: ‘like nearly all village feasts, it has gradually declined of late years, and the village, with its feast, seems to be gradually sinking’.¹⁹ The effects of subsidence, caused by the construction of Fewston and Swinsty reservoirs on an unstable shale foundation, was having an effect on the local population, demonstrating the socionatural impact of the reservoirs beyond their construction. This decline continued into 1883, when attendance at the village inn was below average, due to a lack of attractions to draw the younger members of the community. One development did occur, though, as the local Methodists decided to use the date to mark the anniversary of their Sunday school. This included a sermon from a popular evangelist from York, followed by a public tea party, attended by over two hundred people.²⁰ The decision of the Methodists in the area to hold their Sunday school anniversary on the same day as the Fewston feast meant that, despite the decline of its more sociable aspects, it continued to be celebrated by the local community into the twentieth century, evidence of the continued importance that religion played in rural life.²¹

Nonetheless, the vibrancy of the feast days had declined. Fortunately for locals, this was not the only instance of community camaraderie in the Washburn Valley. The construction of the Robinson Library in Timble provided an important social space for the residents of Timble and nearby hamlets. Reading rooms of this kind were common in rural areas, preceding the village hall movement of the interwar period. Their decline during the 1920s was linked to their limited functionality: they were typically small spaces that could not accommodate large events.²² This does not necessarily apply to the Robinson Library, which functioned as a prominent centre for community life into the twentieth century despite its small size. This was no doubt aided by the fact that the core population of Timble was small; 109 lived in Timble Great in 1891, with a further 19 living in the accompanying Timble Little.²³ The library, which also acted as a free school, was opened in 1891 and financed by Robinson Gill, a business owner in Brooklyn, New York, who had emigrated from Blubberhouses in the 1850s. Gill was following the example of another expatriate philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, who established public libraries in several countries. At the opening of the library, Gill hoped that it would stand as ‘a perpetual mark of my respect and esteem of the people of the village and the surrounding country’ and that it would be a place to ‘develop and enlighten the mind and make life more pleasant and cheerful’.²⁴ It was not long before the Robinson Library came to hold a social as well as didactic purpose.

Two years later, the library started to be used for the anniversary celebrations of the City of Refuge Lodge friendly society. The celebrations were held annually during Whit week, a period of the year that continued to hold cultural significance for rural communities despite the decline of traditional activities related to drinking and debauchery.²⁵ The success or failure of friendly societies was an indicator of local conditions in individual communities, as friendly societies relied on the community to survive through participation and subscriptions. They were vitally important, though, to rural working class ideals of respectability, especially during anniversary celebrations that focused the community’s attention on the civility of the working class.²⁶ The celebrations, which followed the pattern of club days that Alun Howkins has identified of friendly societies in Oxfordshire, began at the Timble Inn, followed by a procession to Fewston church headed by a brass band.²⁷ After a service at Fewston church and a short stay at an inn in Fewston, the procession returned to Timble and sat down to a large meal and meeting in the Robinson Library.²⁸ Like the Fewston feast, the day finished with the youth of the area returning to the Timble Inn to enjoy music and dancing.²⁹

As a member of the lodge, John Dickinson noted his attendance at meetings and anniversary celebrations. His entry for the lodge celebration of 1881 gave a flavour of the day’s proceedings:

The Guiseley Brass Band of Musick [sic] arrived around 10. There were about 80 men present and it was very busy at the Timble Inn. We walked (in procession) to Fewston Church and made a good show. Club meeting in the evening then a dance which was carried on with great spirit up to 10 o’clock then all turned out.³⁰

The presence of a brass band at the front of the procession was not uncommon for friendly society anniversary celebrations or feast days. The excerpt also highlights the number of people present for the procession, illustrating that the celebration, including the religious element, was popular among the residents of Timble and further afield. A further entry from 1889 emphasised the processional elements of the day as well as its continuing popularity: ‘About 100 members of the village lodge started in procession to Fewston Church […] The Lodge flag was carried in a showy style and all passed off brilliantly’. A series of events took place during the evening, including dancing in the Timble Inn and games such as kissing rings, which led Dickinson to remark, ‘altogether a high day for our poor old dull village’.³¹

Unlike the Fewston feast, which decreased in popularity during the 1890s, the lodge anniversary continued to be a popular event into the 1900s. The Wharfedale and Airedale Observer commented in 1900 that after the general meeting of the lodge had been held, ‘many visitors from a distance and all the young folks of the surrounding districts turned up, and various amusements occupied the time up to close upon the midnight hour’.³² In 1901, the newspaper hailed the ability of the lodge to maintain its membership and anniversary celebrations ‘in face of the general decay of village life’.³³ Indeed, unlike rural events such as the wakes in the provincial Oldham area, which declined steadily during the late nineteenth century, the membership of the lodge increased during the early 1900s, with 120 members in 1900, 134 members in 1902, 150 members in 1903, and 155 members in 1907.³⁴ This increase was in spite of general malaise around rural depopulation during the early twentieth century.

The pace of rural depopulation in Britain during the late nineteenth century exceeded any other country in Europe, an exodus that undercut forms of community, which was reflected in some newspaper reporting.³⁵ The opening of an unemployment bureau in Otley in 1906 was attributed to rural depopulation that resulted in an increase of unemployed men in towns and cities.³⁶ In 1911, the reservoirs were cited as causes for further decline, with compulsory land purchases and afforestation seen as having led to depopulation that had left the valley ‘a wilderness’.³⁷ As with Dickinson’s diary, though, the supposed effects of rural depopulation seem a little exaggerated, evidenced by the lodge celebrations that began to incorporate other activities. The anniversary of 1903 included dancing in front of the Timble Inn as well as sociable activities inside the Timble Inn and the chapel.³⁸ The 1906 anniversary included a cricket match between a team from Timble and a selected eleven from Farnley Hall, demonstrating that different classes engaged with these activities.³⁹ It is clear, then, that while the size of the Washburn Valley’s population decreased, community life in the valley adapted and continued to be celebrated into the twentieth century.

The continuance of community life was further emphasised in 1906 when a scheme to promote the area’s farming exploits was put forward, headed by Captain Wakefield, the tenant of Swinsty Hall.⁴⁰ The Washburn Valley Farmers’ Association sought to promote an agricultural society for the area, which had several benefits for community life. Since the decline of industry in the valley, the primary form of employment was agriculture, aided by the letting of land compulsorily bought by the Leeds Corporation for farming; 185 people were employed in the valley in 1911 as either farmers or farm labourers.⁴¹ Providing a collective society would help to bind the agricultural community of the valley.

A related benefit was the introduction of an annual farming show held in September, which would not only provide an opportunity for the residents of the valley to come together but, with the presence of agricultural competitions such as best mare or heaviest fowl, would also add an element of competition for farmers to engage in and, in theory, raise the stock of farming produce in the valley. Additionally, only those who farmed in the Washburn Valley could enter the farming show. While farming shows were a staple of the agricultural calendar in nearby Otley and Harrogate, these shows were the province of larger and more prestigious farms, at which Washburn Valley farmers were less likely to win awards. Restricting entry to the show gave tenant farmers a chance at winning prizes and stopped the event from becoming larger than was necessary. A further benefit was that, as a society, it was anticipated that events such as talks would be held throughout the year, therefore providing opportunities for the communities of the valley to engage with. One such talk took place in Fewston in 1907 on the prosperity of Danish farming, emphasising that farmers in the valley were interesting in exploring international farming techniques as well as domestic.⁴² As older forms of community engagement began to decline, the farming association provided an opportunity to rejuvenate community life.

District agricultural societies such as the Washburn Valley Farmers’ Association arguably enjoyed their heyday during the mid-nineteenth century, declining from the 1850s onwards as difficulties were encountered in sustaining regular meetings once favourite topics had been exhausted.⁴³ The success of the association runs counter to this narrative, not only in starting after many had ceased to exist in the early twentieth century, but in managing to survive until the 1970s. This is, perhaps, due to the nature of agricultural employment in the valley, with farmers only becoming tenants during the 1900s after compulsory land purchases by the Leeds Corporation, meaning that they lacked a unified employment status until then. Additionally, the remote nature of the valley, which was ultimately detrimental to industry during the early nineteenth century, was potentially an advantage in shielding the agricultural community from wider changes, including agricultural shows.

The first Washburn Valley Show, in September 1906, took only five weeks to organise. Meetings with the organising committee, led by Captain Wakefield, were held in all areas of the valley, which lent full support and, more importantly, financial aid to the event. Further support was offered by interested parties from within the valley, such as Captain Wakefield himself and Reverend D. T. Milligan, the vicar of Fewston church. There was also support from wider afield: Joshua Tetley and Sons contributed ten pounds and sixpence, while the Leeds Corporation donated five pounds to the event annually from 1906 onwards for running costs or prize money.⁴⁴ The event itself was hailed as a great success for the area by the Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, which praised the establishment of the yearly event:

The chief aim of the association is to promote the betterment of the breeding of stock locally, and during the dreary winter months to arrange for a course of discussions on matters appertaining to the farming industry. Apart from an evening socially spent during the winter season, the exchanging of ideas will have a most beneficial effect, and will tend to cement a good feeling of comradeship between the various townships.⁴⁵

Aside from the agricultural competition itself, which had 123 entries in its first year, entertainment included the performance by a brass band from Otley. As already noted, the presence of brass bands was an integral element of community events in the Washburn Valley, which provided occasions with a sense of dignity.⁴⁶ Following the conclusion of the show, a dance was held at the Robinson Library, with refreshments, including beer from Ilkley Brewery Company, provided by the Timble Inn.⁴⁷ The show was a success in both providing a space for the tenant farmers of the valley to exhibit their produce and in creating new social events for residents across the valley.

The show continued to grow in popularity over the following years. The second show in 1907, which also took place in Timble, saw an increase in entries, mixed with what was deemed to be a slightly disappointing attendance given the work the association had done in trying to promote the event in towns outside the valley.⁴⁸ The third show, held in Norwood, built on the success of the previous two shows, despite being held in a less accessible area of the valley. Entries from farmers increased again on the previous year, and ‘there was a large attendance from the more adjunct villages’.⁴⁹ The popularity of the event continued to increase. The Wharfedale and Airedale Observer remarked of the 1910 show that: ‘At the time of opening there was a moderate attendance, and as the afternoon wore on, this was greatly increased by visitors from all parts of the district, even the Metropolis sending its quota’ – word of the successful event had evidently spread to Leeds.⁵⁰

This success continued into the interwar period as entries to the competition and visitor numbers increased. This was in spite of the difficulties the agricultural sector encountered during the interwar period, what Alun Howkins has termed the ‘locust years’ in which the sector was perpetually depressed.⁵¹ The show also continued to draw crowds from outside the valley itself; the Wharfedale and Airedale Observer remarked in 1921 that ‘the pleasantly-situated show ground was thronged during the afternoon and evening with visitors from the surrounding towns and villages; indeed, the cities of Leeds and Bradford contributed their quota’.⁵² In 1925, the newspaper noted that attendance at the show numbered over one thousand, an impressive figure given the relatively inaccessible nature of the Washburn Valley generally and Norwood in particular. Indeed, accessibility became an issue towards the end of the 1920s, prompting the association to move the show from the Sun Inn, Norwood to the Hopper Lane Hotel, situated on the A59 that connects Skipton and Harrogate. Looking back in 1934, the Wharfedale and Airedale Observer praised this move: ‘The accessibility of the field from the main Harrogate–Skipton Road has resulted in larger number of visitors from further afield, and entries were again a record’.⁵³ The move also precipitated a change in the entertainment on show. While both venues were situated next to public houses, the shows at Norwood included a roster of sports, such as races for boys, girls, men, single women and married women, three-legged races, a slow bicycle race and an obstacle race, whereas at Blubberhouses the entertainment involved a donkey race and a clay pigeon shooting competition, as well as music provided by brass bands.⁵⁴ The show did not provide the same entertainment each year, but sought to evolve in order to maintain the interest of visitors alongside the agricultural competition itself, attempting to capitalise on the valley’s popularity as a site of leisure and beauty.

There were some elements of the valley’s rural life that warranted John Dickinson’s assessment that community life was in decline. The demise of the feast days, important annual cultural events, are an example of this, although the decline of such days in the Washburn Valley occurred slightly later than other local areas.⁵⁵ This, in addition to the general reduction in the valley’s population, was, to some like Dickinson, evidence that both community and rural life were in terminal decline. However, as K. D. M. Snell has argued, one of the main factors in the expression of community is a sense of belonging.⁵⁶ Although the feast days declined in importance, the City of Refuge Lodge anniversary celebrations brought members of the friendly society and others from the wider area together. The success of the Refuge Lodge during this period is an indication that a sense of community remained in the valley, despite Dickinson’s contrary assessment. The Washburn Valley Farmers’ Association Show, an event that grew through the early twentieth century, played a similar role in bringing together the working community for a day to celebrate both the agricultural produce of the area and the community life of the valley. The Washburn Valley provides an interesting case study to contrast with other areas, such as parts of Wales targeted by Liverpool and Birmingham, as well as the Lake District targeted by Manchester. In those cases, the waterworks schemes ensured that those areas became mostly if not entirely depopulated. In contrast, the Leeds reservoirs had an undoubted impact on the area, as shown in previous chapters, but because the entire valley was not flooded, it meant that life could go on for many, albeit in a different way. As with cultural depictions of the countryside, the coming of reservoirs did not necessarily mean the death of rurality.

The negative impacts of waterworks

While the impact of the reservoirs on the communities of the Washburn Valley was more nuanced than perhaps first envisioned by Dickinson, this does not mean that reservoir projects were not highly disruptive. The subsidence of Fewston village in the Washburn Valley was testament to this, as were the impacts on communities in other areas of the country. Municipal governments purposefully targeted areas of the country for reservoir development that did not have large populations, thereby making parliamentary approval easier to obtain. This led to a somewhat callous regard for those that did live in the affected areas. Little to no mention was made of the impact on local communities during Liverpool’s deliberations over the Vyrnwy project, despite the eventual impact that the waterworks would have, with homes for over two hundred residents constructed and a new school built.⁵⁷ There was local opposition to the construction of Vyrnwy, although this was ignored by the parliamentary process and the English press. It was also downplayed by the few nationalist publications that did acknowledge local concerns, which Owen Roberts attributes to the nature of Welsh nationalism in the nineteenth century. This form of nationalism saw itself less as oppositional to English modernity and more as wanting to play a full part in the success of the British Empire.⁵⁸ Water supply was particularly local in this period, but here we can see the genesis of later ideas around the importance of local efforts to the national supply of water as Denis Cosgrove, Barbara Roscoe and Simon Rycroft have highlighted in the 1970s. For them, people local to the newly built Rutland Water in East Leicestershire saw that reservoir as helping to serve the national need for water, despite the fact that water networks in that period were locally connected and could not transfer water nationally.⁵⁹

Of the several waterworks projects undertaken in the late nineteenth century, Birmingham’s Elan and Claerwen Valley schemes had the highest potential impact to rural communities due to the size of the undertaking. While the Claerwen scheme was never realised as planned in the 1890s, what came to pass has been termed by David Lewis Brown as ‘the Elan Valley clearance’, an evocation of the Highland clearances in Scotland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.⁶⁰ Although not as dramatic as those clearances, which saw the decimation of clan culture in the Scottish highlands, the Elan Valley underwent a sizeable population decline because of the reservoirs. As part of the parliamentary Act that authorised the construction of the reservoirs, Birmingham Corporation was given seven years of compulsory purchasing powers.⁶¹ Surveys were undertaken to assess which residents would need to be rehoused and which buildings would need to be rebuilt elsewhere. Of the sixty-seven properties in the Elan and Claerwen valleys, eighteen were demolished or abandoned, with six replacement cottages built in addition to a new school and church for the area. In 1891, there were 298 people living in the Elan and Claerwen valleys, a number that decreased to 103 by 1911. While several families were rehoused by Birmingham Corporation, there was an undoubted impact on the local community of the area, particularly those who spoke only Welsh; by 1911 just five residents in the valleys only spoke Welsh.⁶²

While the Elan Valley clearances or the flooding of Llanwddyn to construct Lake Vyrnwy did not provoke outright opposition despite their impact on local people and culture, they were certainly influential, forming part of a longer-term history of displacement and injustice in the minds of many. This was aptly the subject of Emlyn Williams’s 1949 film The Last Days of Dolwyn, a film notable for being Richard Burton’s motion picture debut. The film follows the story of the village of Dolwyn, targeted by industrial interests in Lancashire as a suitable site for a reservoir – a reservoir had been constructed higher up the valley but owing to geological problems that project had to be amended, which meant flooding Dolwyn. The landlords of the area, the Dolwyn family, agree to the project in order to cover several debts, as does the majority of the village in exchange for compensation and the promise of a new home and job in the fictional Liverpool suburb of Hagton. The main character of the story, the elderly widow Merri, is one of the few that fails to accept the move; however, as she is a tenant, she has no power. On discovering that, in fact, she is the leaseholder for her property, Merri refuses to move, turning down hundreds of pounds. In response to his failure to secure the valley for Lord Lancashire, the villainous agent Rob Davis attempts to open the floodgates of the original reservoir further up the valley, but he is unable to do so.⁶³

The film has somewhat fantastical elements to it: it concludes with a fight between an enraged Davis trying to set fire to the village and Burton’s character Gareth, who accidentally knocks an alcohol-soaked Davis into a fire which causes his death. In order to save her foster-child Gareth from the consequences of his actions, Merri decides to hide the body in her house and go to the reservoir to open the floodgates, which she successfully does. Emlyn’s film is woven with relevant themes here. It is notable that opposition to moving from the villagers themselves is largely non-existent – many are happy to move. This is embodied most clearly in Merri’s other son Dafydd, who is desperate to leave the dull countryside for the bright lights of Liverpool. Contrasted with him is Burton’s Gareth, who at the start of the film returns from Liverpool, unable to bear the noise, the smog, and the seven-storey buildings. Gareth represents the anti-urbanism that would soon be taken up by Plaid Cymru, returning to the land of his forebearers. The film is also notable for the amount of Welsh spoken by characters. There are several occasions where characters like Merri comment on their inability to speak English, emphasising that Dolwyn is a bastion of Welsh language and culture that was under threat.

There is also the theme of progress versus tradition: as well as the traditions of the village being under threat, the viewer is treated to several shots of the already built reservoir at the top of the valley spanning to the rural idyll of Dolwyn, a sign of what was to come. Urban progress is represented by the villainous Rob Davis, played by Williams himself, a former native of the village who had been run out as a twelve-year-old after stealing from the church collection plate. At a meeting of leaseholders to inform them of the scheme, he neatly summarised the urban perspective of rural reservoir development: ‘by the miracle of science a few insanitary dwellings will become of use to millions of people’. Ultimately, the message of Williams’s film is that progress cannot be stopped, even by the most belligerent of bulwarks. When Davis first tries to flood the village, instead of evacuating following the sounding of the flood alarm, Merri decides to stay in her home, aware that it would mean her death. It is only after Gareth kills Davis that Merri takes it on herself to flood the village to save her son. In the end, the last defender of Dolwyn is the one to flood the village, underlining that modernity is inevitable.

Emlyn’s film sits at an interesting nexus point: simultaneous to the construction of Claerwen reservoir and a few short years before Llyn Celyn, but looking back on projects completed in the late nineteenth century. This suggests that there was continuity of experience. However, constructing reservoirs in Wales in the twentieth century was complicated by the increasingly polarising issue of Welsh nationalism. While this was not as prominent in the nineteenth century as it would become in the twentieth, Wales was conceptualised from the outset as an untapped resource for English cities to utilise.⁶⁴ This led to what has been termed as a ‘quasi-imperialist’ approach to colonising the Welsh rural hinterland by English cities. This was certainly the type of language used by Gwynfor Evans, the leader of Plaid Cymru during the Tryweryn episode, who subsequently became Plaid Cymru’s first MP. In a pamphlet published in the 1970s, Evans wrote of Wales as an exploited colony whose natural resources were taken for the benefit of another state. He situated rural depopulation within this framework of colonial exploitation, citing the decline in population in Merioneth between 1881 and 1971. For Evans, the depopulation of rural areas was a symptom of the quasi-imperialist relationship between England and Wales, so a scheme like Tryweryn was not just about appropriating Welsh resources but exploiting depopulated areas caused by English modernity.⁶⁵

The shift in attitude towards Welsh waterworks came not after the Second World War, but during the interwar period. The proposal to dam the River Ceiriog by a group of northern English towns led by Warrington was met with resistance from both conservationists, who worried that the dam would ruin the natural beauty of the Welsh landscape, and nationalists concerned about the weakening of Welsh culture and language. They also argued that Welsh resources should only be for the benefit of the Welsh, while they shared concerns with conservationists over the potential damage that could be wrought to the landscape. While the proposal never went ahead, due more to issues between the English towns than Welsh opposition, it set the stall for the battles to come after the Second World War.⁶⁶

As with other cities in the post-war period, Liverpool was concerned about insufficient water supply. Concerns around the ability of Lake Vyrnwy to continue to meet demand meant that in 1956 Liverpool started to look elsewhere. The council settled on a scheme on the River Tryweryn, a tributary of the River Dee north of Bala Lake. The Tryweryn and Dee was one of the many schemes contemplated by Liverpool Corporation in the 1870s, dismissed at that time because of potential issues with opposition from riparian interests.⁶⁷ As rural industry had declined by the 1950s, this was less of an issue. The scheme was projected to supply seventy-five million gallons of water a day, a sizeable increase on the Vyrnwy supply.⁶⁸ Opposition, though, would come to be the defining issue regarding Tryweryn, not from riparian owners but from Welsh nationalists.

The flooding of Capel Celyn and the completion of Llyn Celyn reservoir was seen by Welsh nationalists in particularly morbid terms. As Ed Atkins has highlighted, the continued use of the word ‘drowning’ when referring to the fate of Capel Celyn reinforced a sense of violence: the village was not being removed or replaced or even erased: it was being killed, submerged against its will. This violent narrative was further reinforced elsewhere. An amateur film produced by staff and students at Friars School (Ysgol Friars) in Bangor in 1965 interwove the language of death. Narrated by a schoolchild, symbolising the lost future of Capel Celyn, there are repeated references to loss and death. One of the earlier scenes was accompanied with the following:

This tiny village of seventy-four souls under sentence of death since the government Act of 1957 soon will need no longer its stepping stones across its controversial stream.⁶⁹

The reference to souls, as would be used to describe those lost at sea, as well as the more explicit reference to the death sentence of the Liverpool Corporation Act 1957 are indicative of the way that Llyn Celyn reservoir was conceptualised by Welsh nationalists and many Welsh people. After showing scenes of local inhabitants moving out of their homes and shots of the reservoir’s construction, the film concludes with what Llyn Celyn meant for Liverpool itself. ‘Tryweryn water’ – another deliberate semantic tactic used by nationalists to reinforce the impact of the scheme – would be used to provide better housing, access to washing machines, and water for the growing light industries of Merseyside.⁷⁰ Following these scenes, the narrator remarked that ‘we would do well to remember that progress for many means heartache for the few’, followed by shots of the abandoned homes and buildings of Capel Celyn. Modernity came at a cost, a cost that was paid overwhelmingly by those who would benefit the least.

The opposition to Tryweryn was, however, much more complex, as Martin Johnes has highlighted.⁷¹ This speaks to the nature of rural modernity, which presents a more complex framework through which to see social changes to the countryside, as highlighted by Francis Brett Young’s The House Under the Water. Opposition to the flooding of Capel Celyn also came from the residents of Capel Celyn themselves, who were famously led by Evans to a meeting of the Liverpool Corporation to protest against the scheme. For Trever Fishlock, Tryweryn was a moment of traumatic awakening for many in Wales who saw that Welsh culture and values were under direct threat.⁷² However, although residents had been shocked to find surveyors walking around Capel Celyn planning the scheme, the first they had heard about plans to flood the village, by 1957 many had seemingly accepted the inevitable. After all, Liverpool Corporation was obliged to pay compensation to residents and rehouse them, which would mean financial support and better quality housing.⁷³ This is an issue that is foretold with remarkable prescience in The Last Days of Dolwyn, with Williams depicting many of the villagers as being happy and willing to sell up and move to a new estate on the edge of Liverpool, with only Merri holding out. While there was an obvious attachment to place, for many the promise of better housing and a better quality of life will have been attractive. The Friars School film further illustrates this point, showing a couple begrudgingly leaving their home in Capel Celyn only to find them happy and contented in their new home a few miles away.

Although it was a blow to culture in the heartland of Wales, Capel Celyn was not the only village to be submerged to fulfil urban needs. Villages had been flooded for quite some time: indeed, the inspiration for Emlyn Williams’ prophetic film was the village of Llanwddyn, which was submerged to construct Lake Vyrnwy. As noted in Chapter 4, the construction of reservoirs in the Elan Valley resulted in submerging several buildings including Nantgwyllt, the one-time home to Percy Shelley. Into the interwar period, the most famous example of a village being flooded for a reservoir was Ashopton, flooded in order to build Ladybower reservoir in Derbyshire.⁷⁴ The flooding of rural villages with small populations was a well-established trope of reservoir construction by the 1950s, an act that came to symbolise the political and, to some, moral authority of towns and cities over the countryside, a social dimension to the taming of nature and the Promethean project.

A fruitful example to compare with Llyn Celyn is Thruscross reservoir, built in the Washburn Valley between 1960 and 1966. Not only was this contemporaneous to what was happening in Merionethshire, but Thruscross involved the flooding of West End, a small village in the upper half of the Washburn Valley. In terms of social impact, the two projects share commonalities: both were very disruptive to those that were displaced. Culturally, the impact of Thruscross was far less than Llyn Celyn, for understandable reasons. Furthermore, unlike the residents of Capel Celyn, those living in West End had been expecting to be displaced for nearly one hundred years.

Leeds Corporation had originally planned to build Thruscross in the 1870s with the other Washburn Valley reservoirs. However, due to a lack of money and statutory time granted by the Leeds Waterworks Act 1867, the waterworks committee decided to postpone constructing Thruscross until it was necessary. The moment of necessity was reached in the 1950s, as increased water demand and drought put pressure on the city’s supply network. In some respects, the upper Washburn Valley was very similar to that encountered in the 1860s – the flax industry that had sustained life and allowed settlements like West End to develop had already declined by the 1860s, with sheep farming being the predominant form of work. There were some differences, though. First, although the original proposal for Thruscross was not expected to flood West End, residents in the area had long been expecting an impact on their lives. This sense was heightened by a series of compulsory land purchases undertaken by Leeds Corporation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ostensibly for the purpose of protecting the Washburn watershed from pollution.⁷⁵ In the upper valley, though, where no reservoir yet existed, these purchases could be construed as helping to solve tomorrow’s problem. Whatever the rationale, it meant that residents of West End and the surrounding farms became tenants of the corporation.

It is clear that this shift to corporation tenancy, as well as the general decline of the area due to a lack of employment prospects, had an impact on how the village was seen by both residents and urbanites in Leeds. The Yorkshire Evening Post continually returned to West End during the twentieth century, utilising the language of Oliver Goldsmith by dubbing it ‘the deserted village’ as early as 1911; ideas around the death of rural England predated Dickinson’s Timble Man.⁷⁶ Reports in the Yorkshire Evening Post often noted the history of West End as an industrial village with a mill that employed two thousand people not fifty years earlier, more likely an accumulative figure stated for effect rather than two thousand employees at any given time. One correspondent to the Evening Post, Rightaway, in an article from 1919 revisiting West End, drew a somewhat hyperbolic comparison between the village and war-damaged Belgium: ‘A pilgrimage there at the present time might help one to picture some of the ruined villages of Flanders’, a comparison also made by J. B. Priestley in his 1934 English Journey.⁷⁷ The Yorkshire Evening Post’s fascination with West End continued throughout the interwar period, with excursions to the village continuing to draw on the village’s history as a once thriving industrial village. One article from 1938 pointed to the land purchases by the Leeds Corporation in the 1900s as the final nail in the village’s coffin.⁷⁸ As already discussed, the decline of West End was precipitated before the corporation sought to build reservoirs in the Washburn Valley. While the corporation undoubtedly capitalised on this decline with land purchases in preparation for the new reservoir, it would be unfair to lay the blame squarely on the Leeds Corporation for West End becoming ‘the deserted village’.

Although the waterworks committee did not propose constructing a reservoir at Thruscross until 1952, a Yorkshire Evening Post article from 1949 suggested that construction was a distinct possibility. The article provided interviews with the few remaining residents of West End and residents of the nearby village of Thruscross who vehemently argued that, despite the decline of industry and population that had left the area largely unpopulated, a reservoir would spoil the valley. One resident, almost with an air of resignation, stated that ‘We know Leeds must have water, but it’s heartbreaking to lose our little valley. […] We hope the borings reveal a mass of solid rock totally unsuitable for reservoirs or embankments’.⁷⁹ The article continued the style of reporting employed during the interwar period by once again highlighting the decline of a once bustling industrial village with nothing but ‘skeletons’ to show for it – another image of death.⁸⁰ These comments are indicative of the wider concern during the interwar and post-war years of municipal encroachment into the countryside. They also provide parallels with the experience of Llyn Celyn, which was seen as a threat to Welsh culture. While this was most explicitly expressed by Plaid Cymru as a threat to the Welsh language, the idyllic representation of the valleys as being intrinsic to Welsh culture was also threatened by the imposition of urban engineering. This point is made by Williams in The Last Days of Dolwyn, which includes several panoramic shots of the bucolic Welsh countryside before spanning to the dam constructed above the village.

A further article in the Yorkshire Evening Post from 1953 once again lamented the future loss of West End, this time interviewing a former school teacher in the village who deplored the decline of schooling in rural villages that, she argued, caused children to lose their sense of place.⁸¹ This is symptomatic of the developing sense during the mid-twentieth century of a ‘lost’ England, aggravated by the encroachment of towns and cities into the countryside, a theme subsequently deemed to be a myth propagated by groups like the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England.⁸² Thus, the extent to which the countryside was threatened from outside factors has been questioned. Again, there are parallels to be drawn with Llyn Celyn, which was seen by nationalists as a threat to Wales, especially as Plaid Cymru conceptualised Welsh identity as being rural in nature.⁸³ The difference between the two cases, though, was that West End was largely uninhabited because of previous depopulation. While only a small number of people lived there, there was more significant displacement at Capel Celyn.

Nevertheless, the sense of a lost ‘England’ remained pervasive. A case in point was the loss of West End village itself, although, according to the Yorkshire Evening Post’s reporting, the loss would be borne more by visitors who would never see the beauty of West End than the residents themselves, who had long come to terms with the loss of their local idyll.⁸⁴ This, perhaps, is at the heart of the Yorkshire Evening Post’s reporting, which, as one resident noted, was not circulated in the Washburn Valley. The concern lay less with the loss of a residential area, but with the loss of a beauty spot on the doorstep of Leeds, which had become more accessible with the increase in motor ownership during the post-war period. While Leeds would be gaining a needed water supply, it would be losing a place of beauty. This demonstrates that, even though a reservoir had not been built, the area was seen within the framework of the ‘Leeds Lake District’, a key part of the cultural dimension of the civic link between the city and the Washburn Valley. The Leeds Corporation certainly did not directly factor leisure into its planning of Thruscross, a commonality shared with contemporaries such as Cow Green reservoir, Teesdale, and Rutland Water in the East Midlands, the architects of which strictly precluded using the space for recreation.⁸⁵ In contrast to narratives of the reservoirs in the lower valley, which were seen to heighten the beauty of the Washburn Valley, the loss of West End was portrayed as a loss to thousands of visitors who would no longer be able to walk over the packhorse bridge or visit Holy Trinity Church. As one correspondent wrote: ‘Something will vanish with the Washburn brook. A solitude and a loveliness to spell and an enchantment. You cannot enter the valley without recognising it. You cannot stay without succumbing to it’.⁸⁶ This is in contrast to Capel Celyn, which was not seen as a tourist attraction due to its remote location in North Wales. This is where the quasi-imperialist feeling regarding Llyn Celyn separates it from the experiences of those in the Washburn Valley: Thruscross ultimately represented the loss of a leisure spot – few people lived in West End by the 1960s for it to be troublesome. The flooding of Capel Celyn, on the other hand, was seen as a threat to Welsh culture in order to improve the livelihoods of the English in Liverpool.

A final difference between the two examples is in their legacies. Capel Celyn and Llyn Celyn have become synonymous with warnings of threats to national culture. As recently as 2022 during a debate in the House of Commons on the Supreme Court’s decision to reject legislation to enable a second Scottish referendum, the group leader of Plaid Cymru, Elizabeth Saville Roberts, referenced Tryweryn to show that nationalist interests in the Union could and would be squashed by Westminster.⁸⁷ In contrast, Thruscross escaped controversy like many other reservoirs that sit on flooded villages. Opposition to Thruscross was relatively muted: the main opponents of the scheme were local authorities like the West Riding County Council who were more concerned about transport access than residents being displaced. There also were not that many people living in West End by 1960: the shadow of Thruscross had provoked many to move away. West End is now largely forgotten, remarked on only when drought is sufficient enough to lay bare the old houses and church foundations, as it was in 1995. This shows the importance of focusing on case studies: there are commonalities between each case, but each has its own individual richness.

To return to where this chapter started, it would be reasonable to assume that community life dwindled in the Washburn Valley following the further loss of West End. The local historian Diana Parsons has been scathing of the impact of the reservoirs, saying that the construction of the reservoirs ripped out ‘the heart of the valley’, and she is especially critical of the decision to prematurely depopulate West End.⁸⁸ However, as shown earlier in this chapter, community life adapted and continued after the construction of the original reservoirs in the 1870s, and the same can be said for life during and after the construction of Thruscross. The Washburn Valley Farmers’ Association shows continued until 1974, struck down by a lack of financial support rather than a lack of participation. Given the decline of similar types of agricultural show during the late nineteenth century, it is remarkable that the Washburn show lasted as long as it did and emphasises its importance to the farming community.⁸⁹ It also helped to bridge the divide between rural tenant and urban landlord. At the show’s dinner in 1950, a member of the association, Mr Renton, praised the actions of the outgoing president Mr Forster, a former manager of the Leeds waterworks, who had been able to cultivate close relations with the tenant farmers of the area. Renton remarked that:

As a boy I used to spend my holidays at Blubberhouses, and the life in the dales is very different to-day from what it was 46 or 47 years ago. On those days if a Corporation official showed his face in the Washburn Valley, everyone went into hiding and peeped round the curtains at him. That does not apply to-day, and it is a good thing.⁹⁰

While only taking place on one day of the year, the Washburn Valley Farmers’ Association shows, as well as the activities of other groups like the Washburn Young Farmers’ Club, highlight the continuance of community life into the second half of the twentieth century, and shows that rural life was not quite as dead as John Dickinson thought some one hundred years earlier. This can be contrasted for a final time with Llyn Celyn, the village of Capel Celyn lost under the waters of the reservoir. Now all that stands is a graffitied stone wall imploring people to never forget Tryweryn.

Conclusion

Waterworks projects elicited a great number of responses. It would be reasonable to assume that those living in areas targeted for development would feel most negatively about them, and at times this was the case. There was an undeniable sense of loss at the flooding of Capel Celyn as there was with the flooding of West End. Flooding villages for waterworks was not just consigned to England and Wales: it was standard practice in many countries. A few years before Capel Celyn and West End were flooded, the construction of the Bhakra–Nangal dams in India partially or fully flooded 375 villages, showing how Western engineering practices had taken hold across the world even after independence.⁹¹ It is also clear that these schemes could stir up strong emotional responses. Tryweryn became a rallying point for Plaid Cymru, while others moved to action went further still by setting explosive devices around the works.

But as Daniel Haines makes clear in a more international context with Bhakra Nangal, and as this chapter does for England and Wales, the loss of villages did not necessarily mean the death of rural life – positives could come from these developments. As the example of the Washburn Valley shows, the management of the waterworks provided the community with a common occupation and status: the tenant farmer. That allowed residents in the valley to create a sense of collective identity, a rallying point of their own, that celebrated what life had become in the area. The Washburn Valley Farmers’ Association continued into the 1970s, well beyond the lifespan of similar agricultural shows. For many later schemes, like Thruscross, a lack of opposition was the result of the scheme being long expected. It is notable that there was a lack of nationalist opposition to the construction of Claerwen reservoir, due in part to geographical factors but also perhaps that the scheme, like Thruscross, was long in the making and expected sooner rather than later. Additionally, the testimony of John Dickinson shows that community life continued to adapt and, in some cases, thrive through local societies and feast days. Johnes’s observation of Tryweryn and Plaid Cymru can be applied more widely, then: the relationship between local people and these areas was complex, and responses to reservoir construction were more nuanced than we might assume, a point encapsulated in The Last Days of Dolwyn. This chapter has demonstrated the importance of looking at local case studies to telling a more national story, as well as the need to tackle difficult histories. It has also shown that the Promethean project was not just about the urban remaking of the countryside: the social consequences of such actions need to be considered fully. While it is easy to see how reservoir developments would fit into the broader narrative of rural decline, their true impact to local communities was more complex.

Notes

1. 1.  David Lewis Brown, The Elan Valley Clearance: The Fate of the People and Places Affected by the 1892 Elan Valley Reservoir Scheme (Logaston Press, 2019), 73–150; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1851–1911, Ancestry UK, accessed 25 April 2017, https://www.ancestry.co.uk.

2. 2.  K. D. M. Snell, Spirits of Community: English Senses of Belonging and Loss, 1750–2000 (Bloomsbury, 2016), 19; Martin J. Wiener, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit 1850–1980 (Penguin, 1985), 57.

3. 3.  See Snell, Spirits of Community.

4. 4.  John Dickinson, Timble Man: Diaries of a Dalesman, ed. Ronald Harker (Hendon, 1988), 57.

5. 5.  Wiener, English Culture, 50; Alun Howkins, ‘The Discovery of Rural England’, in Englishness: Politics and Culture 1880–1920, ed. Robert Colls and Philip Dodd (Bloomsbury, 1986), 85–112; Peter Mandler, ‘Against “Englishness”: English Culture and the Limits to Rural Nostalgia, 1850–1940’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 7 (1997), 155–75, https://doi.org/10.2307/3679274.

6. 6.  Jeremy Burchardt, Paradise Lost: Rural Idyll and Social Change since 1800 (I. B. Tauris, 2002), 141.

7. 7.  Dickinson, Timble Man, 84.

8. 8.  Dickinson, Timble Man, 113.

9. 9.  ‘Fewston’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 20 August 1880, 3.

10. 10.  Robert Poole, ‘Oldham Wakes’, in Leisure in Britain 1780–1939, ed. John K. Walton and James Walvin (Manchester University Press, 1983), 79.

11. 11.  ‘Yeadon Feast’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 13 August 1880, 2.

12. 12.  Dickinson, Timble Man, 22.

13. 13.  Helen Cowie, Exhibiting Animals in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Empathy, Education, Entertainment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 3, 129.

14. 14.  Alun Howkins, ‘The Taming of Whitsun: The Changing Face of a Nineteenth-Century Rural Holiday’, in Popular Culture and Class Conflict 1590–1914: Explorations in the History of Labour and Leisure, ed. Eileen Yeo and Stephen Yeo (Harvester Press, 1981), 191.

15. 15.  ‘Fewston’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 19 August 1881, 5.

16. 16.  ‘Fewston’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 19 August 1881.

17. 17.  ‘Fewston’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 18 August 1882, 5.

18. 18.  ‘Fewston’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 20 August 1880, 3.

19. 19.  ‘Fewston’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 18 August 1882, 5.

20. 20.  ‘Fewston’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 17 August 1883, 4.

21. 21.  Bernard Deacon, ‘Religion and Community: Frameworks and Issues’, Family and Community History 5, no. 1 (2002): 41, https://doi.org/10.1179/fch.2002.5.1.004.

22. 22.  Burchardt, Paradise Lost, 203–4.

23. 23.  Information has been collected from the 1891 England census, Ancestry UK, accessed 20 July 2018, https://www.ancestry.co.uk.

24. 24.  ‘Opening of a Library and Free School at Timble’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 5 August 1892, 7.

25. 25.  Howkins, ‘The Taming of Whitsun’, 187–209.

26. 26.  Audrey Fisk, ‘Diversity within the Friendly Society Movement 1834–1911: The Value to Community Studies’, Family and Community History 3, no. 1 (2000): 23–4, https://doi.org/10.1179/fch.2000.3.1.003; Evelyn Lord, ‘The Friendly Society Movement and the Respectability of the Rural Working Class’, Rural History 8, no. 2 (1997): 172, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956793300001254.

27. 27.  Howkins, ‘The Taming of Whitsun’, 195–7.

28. 28.  ‘Timble’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 26 May 1893, 5.

29. 29.  ‘Timble’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 29 May 1896, 5.

30. 30.  Dickinson, Timble Man, 42.

31. 31.  Dickinson, Timble Man, 59.

32. 32.  ‘Timble’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 8 June 1900, 5.

33. 33.  ‘Timble’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 31 May 1901, 5.

34. 34.  Poole, ‘Oldham Wakes’, 87; ‘Timble’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 8 June 1900, 5; ‘Timble’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 23 May 1902, 5; ‘Timble’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 5 June 1903, 5; ‘Timble’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 24 May 1907, 5.

35. 35.  K. D. M. Snell, Parish and Belonging: Community, Identity and Welfare in England and Wales, 1700–1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2006), 387, 497.

36. 36.  ‘The Unemployment Problem: Labour Bureau to be opened in Otley’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 23 February 1906, 2.

37. 37.  ‘Fewston’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 10 February 1911, 5.

38. 38.  ‘Timble’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 5 June 1903, 5.

39. 39.  ‘Timble’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 8 June 1906, 5.

40. 40.  ‘Notes on News’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 17 August 1906, 4.

41. 41.  Information collected from 1911 England and Wales Census for Farnley, Askwith, Fewston, Blubberhouses and Thruscross, Ancestry UK, accessed 20 July 2018, https://www.ancestry.co.uk.

42. 42.  ‘Farmers and Combination’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 12 April 1907, 7.

43. 43.  Nicholas Goddard, ‘Agricultural Institutions: Societies, Associations and the Press’, in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, volume 7: 1850–1914, ed. E. J. T. Collins (Cambridge University Press, 2000), 668.

44. 44.  ‘Fewston’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 31 August 1906, 5; ‘Fewston’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 7 September 1906, 5; see Leeds Corporation, ‘Leeds Waterworks Committee Minutes, volumes 8–12’, West Yorkshire Archive Service (WYAS), LLC22/1/8–12.

45. 45.  ‘Washburn Valley Show: A Successful Venture Smartly Arranged’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 21 September 1906, 7.

46. 46.  Lord, ‘The Friendly Society Movement’, 172; Stephen Etheridge, ‘Southern Pennine Brass Bands and the Creation of Northern Identity, c.1840–1914: Musical Constructions of Space, Place and Region’, Northern History 54, no. 2 (2017): 261, https://doi.org/10.1080/0078172X.2016.1254379.

47. 47.  ‘Washburn Valley Show: A Successful Venture Smartly Arranged’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 21 September 1906, 7.

48. 48.  ‘Washburn Valley Show: The Second Event Proves a Great Success’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 20 September 1907, 3.

49. 49.  ‘Norwood Show: Washburn Farmers and Stock Breeding’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 25 September 1908, 2.

50. 50.  ‘Washburn Valley Show’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 16 September 1910, 2.

51. 51.  Alun Howkins, The Death of Rural England: A Social History of the Countryside since 1900 (Routledge, 2003), 45–54.

52. 52.  ‘Washburn Valley Show: Record Number of Exhibits’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 16 September 1921, 3.

53. 53.  ‘Washburn Show Goes Ahead’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 21 September 1934, 6.

54. 54.  ‘Washburn Show: Fine Display of Cattle’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 16 September 1927, 3; ‘Washburn Farmers’ Show’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 16 September 1932, 3.

55. 55.  ‘Fewston’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 20 August 1880, 3.

56. 56.  Snell, Spirits of Community, 19.

57. 57.  Owen G. Roberts, ‘Developing the Untapped Wealth of Britain’s “Celtic Fringe”: Water Engineering and the Welsh Landscape, 1870–1960’, Landscape Research 31, no. 2 (2006): 125, https://doi.org/10.1080/01426390600638422.

58. 58.  Roberts, ‘Developing the Untapped Wealth’, 126.

59. 59.  Denis Cosgrove et al., ‘Landscape and Identity at Ladybower Reservoir and Rutland Water’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 21, no. 3 (1996): 534–51, https://doi.org/10.2307/622595.

60. 60.  Brown, Elan Valley Clearance.

61. 61.  Birmingham Corporation Water Act 1892, Library of Birmingham, L/F/45/3; 329596.

62. 62.  Brown, Elan Valley Clearance, 73–150.

63. 63.  Emlyn Williams, dir., The Last Days of Dolwyn, British Lion Films, 1949.

64. 64.  Roberts, ‘Developing the Untapped Wealth’, 123.

65. 65.  Gwynfor Evans, A National Future for Wales (John Percy Press, 1975), 31.

66. 66.  Roberts, ‘Developing the Untapped Wealth’, 126–9.

67. 67.  John Frederick Bateman, ‘New Water Supply: Report of Mr John Frederick Bateman C.E., F.R.S.’, 1875, Liverpool Record Office 352.6 WAT, 9.

68. 68.  Echo municipal correspondent, ‘Tryweyrn No Delay’, Liverpool Echo, 16 December 1959, 19.

69. 69.  Tryweryn, The Story of a Valley (Friars School, Bangor, 1965), held by National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, available on YouTube, https://youtu.be/sfTzuZ49u_0.

70. 70.  Ed Atkins, ‘Building a Dam, Constructing a Nation: The “Drowning” of Capel Celyn’, Journal of Historical Sociology 31, no. 4 (2018): 463, https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12186.

71. 71.  Martin Johnes, Wales since 1939 (Manchester University Press, 2012), 214–16.

72. 72.  Trevor Fishlock, Wales and the Welsh (Cassel, 1973), 102.

73. 73.  Johnes, Wales since 1939, 214–16.

74. 74.  Cosgrove et al, ‘Landscape and Identity’, 534–51.

75. 75.  Power of compulsory purchase was granted in the Leeds Corporation Act 1897. Leeds Corporation, ‘Leeds Waterworks Committee Minutes, volume 7: 1896–1903’, WYAS, LLC22/1/7, 79–165.

76. 76.  Snell, Spirits of Community, 4–5; ‘Washburn Factory of the Past: The Busy Days of Fifty Years Ago in a Famous Valley’, Yorkshire Evening Post, 25 November 1911, 4.

77. 77.  Rightaway, ‘West End Revisited: The Deserted Village of the Washburn’, Yorkshire Evening Post, 21 June 1919, 4; J. B. Priestley, English Journey (Heinemann, 1934), 178.

78. 78.  ‘Last of “Little Mill” at West End: Washburn Valley’s Industries in Days of Water Power’, Yorkshire Evening Post, 4 June 1938, 8.

79. 79.  Con Gordon, ‘Reservoir Will Spoil Valley, Say Dalesmen’, Yorkshire Evening Post, 23 November 1949, 5.

80. 80.  Gordon, ‘Reservoir Will Spoil Valley’.

81. 81.  Evening Post reporter, ‘A Deserted Village May Be Submerged’, Yorkshire Evening Post, 24 April 1953, 5.

82. 82.  D. N. Jeans, ‘Planning and the Myth of the English Countryside in the Interwar Period’, Rural History 1, no. 2 (1990): 261–62, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956793300003332.

83. 83.  Atkins, ‘Building a Dam’, 458.

84. 84.  Evening Post reporter, ‘Deserted Village May Be Submerged’.

85. 85.  Christine S. McCulloch, ‘Political Ecology of Dams in Teesdale’, in Long-Term Benefits and Performance of Dams, ed. Henry Hewlett (Thomas Telford, 2004), 49–58; Cosgrove et al., ‘Landscape and Identity’, 548.

86. 86.  Gordon, ‘Reservoir Will Spoil Valley’.

87. 87.  HC Deb (6th series) 23 November 2022 vol. 723 cc.298–99.

88. 88.  Diana Parsons, The Book of the Washburn Valley: Yorkshire’s Forgotten Dale (Halsgrove, 2014), 110, 113.

89. 89.  Goddard, ‘Agricultural Institutions’, 668.

90. 90.  ‘Rain Affects Attendance at Washburn Show’, Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, 22 September 1950, 7.

91. 91.  Daniel Haines, ‘Development, Citizenship, and the Bhakra–Nangal Dams in Postcolonial India, 1948–1952’, The Historical Journal 65, no. 4 (2022): 1135, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X21000625.