Twice in the same morning I was challenged. A beautiful lady garbed like a princess, had the temerity to say to me, "How dare you leave Redwick with no reference to Longlands?"

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Ten minutes later a Newport citizen accosted me with the remark, "All the Bakers and Morgans and Waters families are hurt that you should ignore Longlands."

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In truth the story of those three great families would involve any village on the sea-moors. Many of them have remained, especially on the Caldicot Level, but I was surprised to discover that over eighty families of Bakers, two hundred of Morgans, and eight of Waters or Walters, live in Newport.

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Made a Mark

I am not suggesting that all originated on the sea-moors, but rest assured, that many of their forbears left the coastal flats for Newport to take their part of the new affluence towards the end of the last century.

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And a superficial study of the life of Newport would indicate that the qualities which made their fathers great farmers ensure their success in business and industry.

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Our sea-moor parishes differ in plan, but are alike in that the focal group of church, inn, vicarage, and shop has its attendant fields, lanes and reens, and, like outposts, the old stone farmhouses. Thus from the hamlet of Redwick we have a track named Longlands Lane ("no through road") one mile along leading to a junction with Rush Wall and accompanied by a reen know now as the Cockington Reen, but which may have been the ancient Ockington.

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Two good stone bridges over the reen lead to the garden and farmyard of Longlands. Here I met big, handsome Geoffery Waters looking like the prop forward of a first class rugby scrum. We examined the front façade of his big handsome house.

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The stones came from several quarries - old red, limestone, and possibly blue pennant. Like all his contemporaries, the architect had sought symmetry, so arranged for three chimneys, three dormers for the attic floor, and five windows each for the first and ground floors.

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Tax Dodge

To evade window tax one window on each of the lower floors was blocked-in. Brick arches over each window saved the window frames strain, and a good porch, as an afterthought, protected the coming and the departing visitors.

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How old? "at a court held in 1683 it was presented that Edward Kemeys of Bertholey holdeth in fee tayle under the lord of the mannor one acre of pasture formerly granted unto Richard Adye and Alice his wife and theire heires at the rent of twelve pence as by a c'tyne writing bearing date 1501. The said acre lyeth at a place called Long Lands." (Bradney).

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No trace remains of any building of 1501. No doorway, chimney, window or fireplace can be recognised as of 1683, yet I have no doubt that the fabric of house and outbuildings was raised in the late seventeenth century.

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Longlands farm, of 325 acres, is based on a complex of buildings which includes a barn, granary, fowl house, stable for two horses a four by "waggon hovel," an open cow -house for twenty cows - now loose boxes - and two pig-sties.

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An outhouse of interest to us had a fireplace, bake-oven, and "arbour." It may have been used, like many others that I have described, as an external kitchen.

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Mrs Waters met us in the porch. As Kathleen James, she was the daughter of farmer Howard James and granddaughter of another famous farmer, W E Baker. A charming guide, she told me of the problems which she faced when she and Geoffrey decided on modernisation.

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"It seems clear that the doorways were constructed for short people. We retained two or three and they are five feet six inches high. The flagstone floors had been timbered over, and most of the original windows had been replaced. As you can see, the living rooms and bedrooms are all of good size and proportion, but we decided on light and brightness everywhere."

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Every room was a tribute to this urge for light. As I have noted before, the old houses lend themselves admirably for modern treatment in decoration and the new extensions at the rear of Longlands, comely and gay though they be, detract little from the grace of the old rooms.

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I saw also the "cellar," now the back kitchen, which may have been the cider-house, the "dairy," now the kitchen, and the "bottom dairy" in which was a fine slab 12 feet by two feet six inches, adjoined until recently but a butter separator.

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Diamond Cut

Views from the upper rooms included a Constable-like landscape towards Redwick house and the church.

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On one of the window-panes Mrs Waters pointed to an inscription, scratched with a diamond "Thomas Baker, 1879." The attic rooms extending the whole length of the house were ceiled but still displayed and the seventeenth century method of roof-timber construction.

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"These attic rooms," commended Mrs Waters, "were occupied by evacuees during the war. And, do you know, throughout the war we had but one window, and that in the stable, smashed by blast."

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One innovation I shall not forget. "When we were planning the changes on the first floor, we decided to have one space devoted to nothing," and so, with a lovely view over the meadows and village, here is a functionless doorless retreat, as delightful in execution as in conception.

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But what would Corbusier - "a house is a machine for living in" - have said to that?