The Vale of Nantgwilt: A Submerged Valley. Illustrative and Descriptive of the Elan and Claerwen Valleys in Radnorshire, Shortly to be Submerged by the Reservoirs for the Water Supply of Birmingham. R. Eustace Tickell, 1894, First Edition; limited edition, just 200 copies were published. 12 etched plates, plus map of the district and a model of the watershed. 27.5x36.5 cm. (10¾x14½"), cloth-backed boards, top edge gilt. This book was produced in 1894 by one of the engineers on the project, Eustace Tickell. It includes several excellent etchings drawn by Tickell himself.  SCARCE book! Only three copies shown in the OCLC WorldCat!

With an engraved armorial bookplate of Schomberg on front pastedown. Cloth spine moderately rubbed, light soiling scattered across boards; hinges cracked; some cracking at gutters between signatures, as well as cloth tape repairs at gutters; plates with light foxing or other faint marks to margins; else very good.

The longest chapter in the book is "Shelley at Cwm Elan and Nantgwilt", by William Rossetti. The chapter includes extensive quotations from letters to and from the poet Shelley during his stays in the Elan and Claerwen valleys in 1811 and 1812. 

Eustace Tickell was the civil engineer who supervised the construction of the Pen-y-garreg dam which formed part of the Elan Valley waterworks scheme of 1892. In his introduction, Tickell gave the following reasons for publishing the volume: 

"The object of this book is to commemorate scenes in one of the most charming valleys in Great Britain. Scenes which are soon to be lost for ever, submerged beneath the waters of a series of lakes, which, by a colossal engineering undertaking, are about to be constructed for the purpose of supplying water to the city of Birmingham, nearly eighty miles away."

"The Vale of Nantgwilt lies at the junction of the rivers Elan and Claerwen on the borders of Radnor and Brecon, to the west of the Wye, into which the Elan falls near the little market town of Rhayader. In this neighbourhood upwards of 45,000 acres of land have been acquired by the Corporation of Birmingham under Act of Parliament ..." (https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/8227)