OLD PHOTOGRAPHS of cities, like photographs of parents in their younger years, have the power to disconcert the viewer.

Buildings one considers to have been forever part of the landscape are revealed as relatively recent interlopers, while buildings scarcely noticed suddenly gain a history. But old photographs of Newport reveal a city which has all but been demolished. Only a few of the fine buildings of our industrial heyday remain.

A new exhibition at Newport Museum and Art Gallery, The Survivors, records 50 of the finest houses in the city to have escaped demolition.

Photographer Rex Moreton said: "I would like to thank the people of Newport who have supplied information about their houses, have allowed me into their gardens to take pictures, have searched their deeds and who have spent time with me.

"The houses in this exhibition were chosen at random and limited to 50. They have all been photographed during the last two years.

"There are many more fine houses in Newport which are certainly worthy of a place in this collection and I hope to go on recording them in the future.

"I wanted the houses to be as near to their original appearance as possible so had some difficulty with road signs, telegraph wires, television aerials, satellite dishes, wheelie bins, yellow lines and parked cars.

"In some cases surrounding trees have grown to such an extent it is only possible to see part of the house and a few properties were covered with scaffolding. "For these reasons some rather fine houses have been left out."

The Survivors is joined by In My View, the Biennial exhibition of the Newport Art Society, founded in February 1940 to help alleviate the stresses and strains of war.

They still meet every week and members have put together a show of the best of their work to hang here.

Both exhibitions open today and continue until August 2.