Nant-y-Gro dam today.

 

The Dambusters connection
Nant-y-Gro dam today

  The trees take over
The remains of the Nant-y-Gro dam can still be seen today in much the same condition as it was left after the secret wartime experiments of 1942. A walk which passes the site is signposted from the Elan Valley Visitor Centre, which is just below the Caban Coch dam. Nant-y-Gro
dam remains,
Elan Valley,
March 2000 The remains of the Nant-y-Gro dam in the Elan Valley photographed (left) in March 2000.
The central portion of the dam is at the level of the watercourse, but the outer walls remain. Today, however, they are barely visible among the trees on both sides of the stream.   It is interesting to compare the above photograph with the 1942 picture taken from a similar viewpoint shown on page1 of this sequence. The storage tank below the dam is easily recognisable but mature trees now make the surviving parts of the original dam hard to spot.

 Part of the
surviving structure
of the dam,
March 2000

 The remaining portion of the right hand side of the Nant-y-Gro dam wall is visible through the trees in the photograph on the left.
This part of the surviving structure still displays the massive split through the masonry which can be seen in the wartime image shown on page 2 of this sequence.
This picture was taken from the upstream side of the dam  

The breaching of the German dams in 1943 by the RAF led to the rapid introduction of improved defensive measures to protect the Elan Valley dams and other large dams elsewhere in Britain.

There are 4 pages on the Dambusters connection. Use the box links below to view the other pages.