Sixty-five years after the end of the Spanish Civil War a cosy corner of a Welsh village still emanates a snug sense of warmth and safety.

"Guests who say they sometimes have trouble when sleeping away from home say they have no trouble here," says the owner of number 18, Cross Street, which nestles in the centre of Caerleon.

Number 18 is now Pendragon House, which offers bed and breakfast and is particularly popular with parents visiting their children at the nearby university.

On October 17 a plaque will be unveiled by its front door to mark the special place number 18 has in the hearts of hundreds of Basque refugees.

From the outside, number 18 has changed little since 1937, when the large number on the door was a welcome sight for Basque children fleeing the horrors of the Spanish Civil War.

From 1936 onwards, the year in which the civil war broke out, first a trickle and then a flood of Basque children sought refuge at Cambrian House, only a couple of hundred yards from Number 18 where Maria Fernandez, who died only two years ago, ruled as matron, confidante and surrogate mother.

"When the Second World War broke out in 1939 Cambrian House was commandeered, creating a problem as to where the Basque children were to go," said Mrs Horton, who has taken a great interest in her property's history.

"Fortunately this place was empty, and the children and Mrs Fernandez moved in here. Hundreds of refugees from Franco's bombs stayed here after the Nationalist victory, rather than return to Spain.

"The trades unions, particularly the miners, the institutes and politically involved people at Cardiff University were responsible for setting up the refuge.

"Now, almost 70 years after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the Basque Children of '37 Association, which keeps former refugees in touch with one another, is going to put a blue plaque on my door."

The trickle of refugees turned into a tide after the infamous bombing of the Basque city of Guernica by German planes fighting on the side of General Francisco Franco, leader of a group of Spanish Army officers who rose against Spain's left-of-centre Republican government in 1936.

Natalia Benjamin, of Oxford, is the daughter of a Spanish anti-Franco refugee and one of the co-founders of the Basque '37 Association.

"We thought it very important to create and preserve an archive relating to the Basque children who came to Britain. Another of our aims is to place blue plaques on places which are of special significance to the young Basques of this period," she said.

"We have already unveiled one at Aston, in Oxfordshire, where Cora Blyth met Luis Gabriel Portillo, a marriage which led to the birth of Michael Portillo, the Conservative politician.

"On Sunday, October 17, half a dozen former Basque children will be at the unveiling of a blue plaque at Pendragon House in Caerleon, the old Cambrian House having been demolished.

"It will be a moving occasion. The Basque children were the forgotten ones of the bitter Spanish Civil War."