Rhayader and the Elan Valley
Trade directories and gazetteers
From the seventeenth century onward, publishers began to find a market for Trade directories containing entries on the tradespeople of each community, plus an account of the town and the locality.
Like the 'Yellow Pages' of today they were intended as a useful guide to the services available to those who were able to afford them. For us today, such publications provide a revealing glimpse of the past.
It was not until the nineteenth century that the smaller communities of rural areas like Powys were included.
Pigot & Co's Directory (South Wales) 1835 Parliamentary Gazetteer of England & Wales
1843
