RootsChat.Com

I'm currently going through the 1908 telephone directory for the Swansea Area of Wales. Obviously, it's street addresses I'm looking for -- none of those numbers is going to work 105 years later! -- but I'm curious as to the meaning of the letters a, x, and y as used in many of the numbers listed, e.g.

Central 183a
Central 586x
Central 295x3
Central 567y
Central 471y2

Does anyone know what they signify, and how one would have called, say, Central 295x3? (x perhaps stands for extension, but what about a and y?)

July 1890  Rhondda tunnel link to coalfield.
but still don't know when it closed...

Rail traffic on the Cymmer Afan to Treherbert section of the line ceased in February 1968 after the tunnel failed a safety inspection. The "temporary" suspension of services proved permanent once the likely cost of repairing the tunnel had been estimated!

I'm replying to a query from over six years ago, so I expect you will have found your answer by now, pat ...! But just in case it might be of help to anyone else, like me, coming to this thread for the first time, here's some more information about Robert Eveleigh and family:

Robert was married twice, in 1833 and 1850.

His first wife was Eleanor Gee (1816-45), It was presumably following Eleanor's death (she died in Devon) that Robert migrated to Neath. He brought with him six children: William (1834), Robert (1836), Ann (1837), Edward (1840), Richard (1842), and John (1844).

He remarried in Neath, his second wife being Mary Ann Radford (1820-83), another Devonian -- she had migrated to Neath at some time in the period 1841-51 together with her brother, sister, and widowed mother. Robert and Mary had two children: George (1852) and Samuel (1856).

In 1851 Robert (who was originally from Aylesbeare near Exeter) was living in Mile End Row in the Melincryddan district of Neath. By 1861 the family had moved to Glynneath, where they were living in Bethania Street. Ten years later, they had moved on again, to the Rhondda, where Robert is recorded as living in Dumfries Street, Treherbert, in the censuses of 1871 and 1881. Robert, who had been an agricultural labourer in Devon, spent the rest of his days working as a coalminer.

Interestingly, the Eveleighs are mentioned in Tony Hopkins's book Neath: the town and its people (West Glamorgan Archive Service 2010) -- as an example of an immigrant family in mid-19th century Neath -- although the author doesn't get the marriage details quite correct. Genealogy isn't always easy, even for the county archive services!