2 Union Street

zoom

The first telephone exchange for Newport and Wormit was based in the old Royal Buildings, entering from Union Street. When that first exchange opened in 1884 there were just seven subscribers. By the 1930s new purpose-built premises were required and so new exchanges were built in both Newport and Wormit. Newport’s new exchange was further along Union Street, now number 2. These early exchanges were operated manually, with the telephone operator connecting one caller to another, although here in Newport local subscribers could call each other direct. With the arrival of digital technology in the 1960s and 1970s these local exchanges were no longer required. As in many other places, the Newport exchange was converted to a house in the mid-1980s.

https://www.newportarchive.co.uk/blog/2017/02/telephones-in-newport/