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Charles John Robinson MA was Vicar of Norton Canon in Herefordshire, and his book was published by Longmans & Co. of London in 1872. It includes comments on the parishes and prominent families of the county. The following entry is for Longtown:

“Longtown, stretching over a large part of the Black Mountains, comprehends within its limits the ruined keep of a Border Castle, the lordship of which, as well as of the entire Hundred of Ewyas Lacy, has descended from Norman times through the great families of Lacy, Verdon, le Despenser and Beauchamp, to the Earl of Abergavenny, who now holds both. (See Castles of Herefordshire, 97-100). In 1660 the chief proprietors in Longtown were Mabell, widow of Cecil Parry,* and the co-heirs of Lord Hopton, viz., Sir Trevor Williams and Thomas Windham. At the present time the land within the parish is divided amongst a large number of owners. The Kellin, purchased from the Guillyms by the Wathen family,+ was left by James Wathen (“Jemmy Sketch”) to John Symonds, whose son, the Rev. Proger H. Symonds, bequeathed it to his kinsman, J.J. Merriman of Kensington, its present owner.

* Cecil Parry was son of John Parry of Llanwonog, in Longtown, by Elizabeth, d. of Roger Vaughan, and grandson of John Parry of Dulas, by Margery Davies (see p.103)

+ Thomas Wathen of Byford and Clehonger, m. 1. Martha Parrott, by whom he had the Kellin, and was father of Thomas Wathen, who, by Dorothy Tayler of Bristol, had James Wathen of the Kellin and Hereford, d. 1828, s.p.  By his second wife, Sarah, d. of the Rev. Rob. Read, R. of Byford, Thomas Wathen, was the grandfather of Elizabeth Wathen, who m. the above John Symonds.”