A grand 56-bedroom hotel, once heaving with injured soldiers during the First World War, now lies completely abandoned. Named The Rest, the Grade II listed building in Porthcawl, Wales was built as a convalescent hotel in the early 1860s. It was subsequently used as an auxiliary military hospital from 1915. Between World War I and II, the hospital provided care for more than 2,500 wounded soldiers from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The Rest, which sits on a clifftop overlooking Rest Bay, returned to civilian use as a convalescent hotel in 1946, before it closed in 2013. Photographer Shaun Ashford, 25, of Cardiff, Wales, visited the historic site and captured the Victorian building’s empty interiors.
Raising his arms above his head and lying flat on his back, a polar bear stretches as he sprawls out across the ice .
With an abandoned tricycle sitting in an empty corridor, this derelict but once grand mansion could be the setting for The Shining .
What lies beneath this building site? Britain's great hope of winning the pre-WW2 arms race against Nazi Germany .
SITTING on a burning sofa unable to move, one man turns his terrifying dreams into reality .
FROM THE world famous Girl with a Pearl Earring painting to a jaguar in the grass, these incredible drawings are created from coloured ballpoint pens .
LYING flat out on his back, this little meerkat makes the most of the English sunshine .
DIVING boffins fired harpoons into 30-foot-long whale sharks in a bid to put the sea-beasts on Google Maps .
STARING eagerly into the camera, this little toad is full of curiosity .
SURROUNDED by divers, a hungry green sea turtle enjoys being the centre of attention .
A quiet Himalayan mountain village springs to life for a colourful Buddhist festival designed to expel evil spirits and bring happiness .
A diver looks like a minnow as she swims alongside a gigantic whale shark, the largest species of fish on the planet .
