WELSH HOTEL ONCE HOME TO WWI SOLDIERS NOW LIES ABANDONED

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.

Other great stories
AMAZING AMERICAN LANDSCAPES

This tranquil setting stretches for miles as the sun sets behind the mountain .

BACKFLIPPING SHARK SOARS DURING SEAL HUNT

Exploding out of the water, a great white shark performs a backflip during a hunt for seals .

HUBBY DRUGGED THEN RAPED ME FROM AGED 15 AND I GOT JUSTICE 30 YEARS LATER

Tina O’Brien, 54, from East Midlands, met Frederick Allchorne, now 62, when she was 15 .

PARTNERS IN GRIME

MASKED intruders look sinister but really they are a gang of urban exploring pranksters .

WOMAN SAYS EATING BUBBLES WHILE PREGNANT WAS BETTER THAN SEX

A woman has told how her addiction to eating bath bubbles during her pregnancy was better than SEX .

MIRACLE MAN SURVIVES 13,000ft FALL WHEN PARACHUTE FAILS

A skydiver cheated death after plunging 13,000 feet without his parachute opening but survived after landing in a bog .

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: SWIMMING WITH SHARKS

Armed with a snorkel, flippers and her skimpy bikini, an intrepid female free diver swims alongside an array of reef sharks .

NINE YEAR OLD GIRL'S 'PULLED MUSCLE' TURNS OUT TO BE CANCER

A nine year old girl nearly lost her leg after doctors initially misdiagnosed her bone cancer as a pulled muscle .

EERIE ABANDONED CHILDREN’S ORPHANAGE

Ornate chandeliers and mahogany panelling give a glimpse into this abandoned building's former glory after it's been left to rot for the past decade .

TIME TRAVELLING PHONE APP

OFFERING a glimpse into the past, a mash-up of old and new photographs show how the world’s biggest cities have changed .

SPRITE LIGHTNING CAPTURED IN AURORA LIGHTS

The aurora lights captured in Blair Nebraska, America - WITH electrifying purple and illuminous green brightening up the night sky, this is the rare moment a flash of 'sprite' lightening was captured on camera .

GOLDEN EAGLE FESTIVAL

RACING through the mountain range on horseback, the Kazakh people practice their ancient tradition of hunting with golden eagles .