Thanks for looking Roger. I don't think there can be any more to find out as the census pages seem to be missing for 1871.
This was found for me by another RC member. They were building the 5 houses between 1875 and 1880 because they were gone by 1881.
Coombs Terrace c1870-80s, no longer there. If you look at a map from the early to mid 1880s you can see a small terrace of homes, roughly where Avoca Place/Wedmore Rd stands today, standing on its own before the rest of the Saltmead area was built. The five homes were built by brickmaker Charles Coombs, four of which housed members of his family, and the terrace was given their name. Bristol-born Coombs had worked at a brickmaker in Newport before moving to Cardiff with his eight children. With two brickworks close by and the huge amount of building work, there was obviously a lot of demand in Cardiff. In 1881, Charles, 62, lived at No1 with wife Ann and son John, a fellow brickmaker, 34, and wife Annie, 37, and their daughter. Next door at No2, lived younger son Thomas, another brickmaker; Two other son Edward, 19, also in the trade and brother James, 16, lived at No3. Eldest son Charles, 38, lived with his wife and children in No 5. The terrace disappears off the map and by the 1890s, the families are living in Penarth Road and Eldon Rd (Ninian Park Road).
I believe it is called "getting the bit between your teeth" when one spends so much time and effort on one small part of a tree. But now I have resigned myself to the fact that I will not know exactly where they were in 1871
Thanks everyone,
Abiam2
