The tiny Welsh village of Elan has supplied Birmingham with water for 101 years.

Now, the community wants something back in return.

Fund-raisers in Rhayader, the nearest town to Elan, have written to the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Coun John Hood, requesting a financial contribution toward the £550,000 cost of building a new museum.

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The close links between Birmingham and Elan make the city a natural port of call in the drive to "turn vision into reality", according to Peter Cox, chairman of Community Arts Rhayader and District.

CARAD has been promised Heritage Lottery funding of £444,500, but on condition that a further £104,000 is raised locally. Small-scale fund-raising events have realised just over £30,000, leaving about £74,000 to be found.

Mr Cox said: "Over the past 30 years our small community has invested a tremendous amount of voluntary effort in creating a local museum collection that represents the unique history of Rhayader and district, including the social and economic impact of the development of the Elan Valley reservoirs to supply water to Birmingham.

"Following an extensive community consultation it became clear that the old Rhayader Folk Museum needed to go through a process of major change in order to guarantee its future, improve access, and to bring the care of collections up to modern standards.

"As our local community pocket is small and limited we are now looking further afield for donations, contributions, grants or business sponsor-ship to enable us to achieve our dream of creating this exciting and important long-term sustainable project - the community museum for Rhayader and district."

A spokeswoman for the Lord Mayor said the request had been forwarded to Coun Mike Whitby, the leader of Birmingham City Council, for further consideration.

The history of the Elan Valley's links with Birmingham goes back to the 1800s.

Joseph Chamberlain set new standards for local government by helping to secure a plentiful supply of clean drinking water for fast-growing Birmingham.

Chamberlain, the mayor of Birmingham who later became an MP, was concerned to eradicate major epidemics of water-borne diseases including typhoid, cholera and diarrhoea - a priority made all the more urgent by the city's rapid industrial expansion.

His solution was to set his sights some 70 miles to the west, across the Welsh border.

Chamberlain's proposal, breathtakingly radical in the 1890s, was to dam the Elan Valley in mid-Wales, allowing millions of litres of water to be piped on a daily basis to Birmingham.

The move coincided with a number of council-led public health improvements, resulting in Birmingham being dubbed the best governed city in the world.

Today, the Elan Valley still supplies Severn Trent with most of Birmingham's water.

An Act of Parliament was required to allow Birmingham to compulsorily purchase 110 square miles of the Elan and Claerwen valleys. The total cost to Birmingham City Council, including construction and land purchase, was £6 million.

The building work, which began in 1893, involved a huge logistical exercise meticulously planned by the authorities.

A special railway was constructed to transport the workers and building materials each day.

A village of wooden huts was purpose-built to house most of the workers, with a special school provided for children under 11.

A hospital was constructed along with a bath house.

The Elan workers' village even had its own pub, for men only, along with a library, public hall, shop and canteen.

It would be naive to assume, however, that the project was without controversy.

More than 100 people living in the Elan Valley had to be forcibly moved and their homes were flooded. Only landowners received financial compensation.

Numerous buildings were demolished including manor houses, farms, a school and a church.

The Elan dams were opened by Edward Vll in July 1904. By 1937, Birmingham's water consumption had risen from 18 to 34 million gallons a day and, after a long drought, the council water committee decided it needed to increase the storage in Wales.

This was done by building a 184ft high dam on the River Claerwen. More than 18,000 tons of gritstone masonry were brought to the site and it was the highest level of any dam in the United Kingdom.

The second phase of dam building began in 1946 and was completed in 1952.

The dams attract 400,000 visitors a year and are considered vital to the economic lifeblood of Rhayader and the surrounding area.