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Elan Valley

valley in Wales

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ1324865
Source-derived summary

The Elan Valley (Welsh: Cwm Elan) is a river valley situated to the west of Rhayader, in Powys, Wales, sometimes known as the "Welsh Lake District". It covers 70 square miles (180 km2) of lake and countryside.

The valley contains the Elan Valley Reservoirs and Elan Village, designed by architect Herbert Tudor Buckland as part of the same scheme. Elan Village is the only purpose-built Arts and Crafts "Model Village" in Wales.

The area is known for its scenery, and over 80% of the valley is designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest. A cycle trail, the Elan Valley Trail, makes a loop from Rhayader around the reservoirs. Part of the cycle trail overlaps with a spur of National Cycle Route 81 (Lon Cambria).

As of 2015 it is an International Dark Sky Park.

See also

Elan Valley Reservoirs

Elan Valley aqueduct

Elan Valley Railway

River Elan

References

External links

Sustrans Routes2Ride: Cycling in the Elan Valley

Sustrans map and description for Route 81, Lon Cambria Archived 24 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine

Official site by Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water and the Elan Valley Trust

City council to fund water museum at BBC News, 26 July 2006

Abandoned communities .....

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Elan Valley” is valley in Wales. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Elan, Valley and valley, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2015, 2010, 2006—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Elan, Valley and valley is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “valley in Wales” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1324865. Authority coordinates are 52.262, -3.589. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015, 2010 and 2006.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Elan Valley”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Elan Valley primary sources, Elan Valley archive and Elan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Elan Valley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.