The Railway Tavern

My latest 3D drawing, the Railway Tavern.

Standing in Water Street, the last building before the railway bridge, opposite the old Aberavon Market.  

Location of the Railway Tavern in Aberavon

The pub, along with much of old Aberavon was demolished in 1972 to make way for the Aberavon Shopping Centre and new road layout, the bus station entrance now stands on the site.

Location of Railway Tavern on a modern aerial photograph.

This particular building was built in 1909 by Mr E. Evans Bevan, replacing the earlier building on the site (also called the Railway Tavern).

Mr Evans Bevan bought the earlier building, along with the two adjacent cottages, at an auction held in the Avon Vale Hotel in July 1900, paying £4900 for the pub, and £335 for the two adjacent cottages after a ‘spirited bidding’.

The new building incorporated these two adjacent cottages and became a much larger pub than the original, with several bars downstairs and a club room and five-bedrooms above . 

Ground Floor Layout 1950
First Floor Layout 1950

The club room on the first floor was well used by the local trade unions for branch meetings and contained a snooker table in later years. Its not known whether the upstairs layout was altered to accommodate this as this would’ve taken up a large part of the space.

Landlords from the 1940s onwards include:
Mr & Mrs Phillips (Until late 40s)
Lilian and Garfield Davies  (Late 40s – 1950s)
The final Landlady was Alice Thomas who ran the pub from the 1960s until its demolition.

In its earlier form the pub seemed to run in to a few licensing issues over the years. The licensee in 1903 was Mary Abraham – she was summoned to Aberavon Police-court, for permitting drunkenness in the pub ‘on the Thursday evening prior to Good Friday’. She was fined £2 plus costs!

Later in 1904 the tavern would have its licence objected to due to ‘structural defects’, these were later rectified and the licence granted, but may have gone some way to encourage its re-building.

I’ll have to take a look through some earlier shots of Water Street to see if I can catch a glimpse of the pub in its earlier form, I’m not certain yet from what date the first pub was on this site. Any further information on the landlords, or history of this pub would be much appreciated. 

Below is the full 360° view, which might take a few moments to load.

With thanks to Damian Owen for reference photographs, the West Glamorgan Archive Service for reference drawings and members of Port Talbot Old and New for additional information.