How iconic abandoned hotel is being given a new lease of life
Built on the advice of Florence Nightingale, The Rest Hotel has stood above Porthcawl’s picturesque bay for almost 150 years. Abby Bolter was invited to see how it’s being transformed...
STEPPING inside the imposing yet dilapidated Grade II-listed building in Porthcawl is like travelling back in time.
With every corner turned and corridor walked there’s evidence of how this sprawling mansion served countless individuals over the years.
In the early days it provided miners with a welcome seaside break before it became a hospital for wounded and traumatised allied soldiers from both world wars. Latterly, it was a holiday hotel for older people, as well as the base for a charity treating service personnel suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health difficulties.
But falling custom and wear and tear left the management committee facing an uphill financial struggle to keep it going. Its last occupants and almost 50 staff left in 2013.
The building was then bought by Gary Mayo, director of Bryn Meadows Golf, Hotel and Spa, near Caerphilly. But it has stood empty with only pigeons as residents while plans for its future were drawn up.
Developers Acorn now hope to start work later this year once a revised planning application has been approved.
But preparatory work to ready the landmark for conversion to 34 apartments and the demolition of old annexes to make way for a new building, which will house an extra 35 apartments, has begun.
Acorn’s regional managing director James Groombridge said stripping out asbestos, old and defunct lifts and chipping away years of plaster, extra walls and peeling off layers of wallpaper has revealed further glories in an already stunning building.
Once such architectural feature is a whimsical square wooden tower stretching up from the top floor, which still has the original sash windows at the top. The developers had no idea it was there until they removed the enormous metal water tank which filled the void beneath it. Now it is being included in the plans for the apartment below it and will become a unique study space.
“The absolute key for us is to keep an open mind and keep looking at it,” said James.
As the unusual features, including beautiful stonearched doorways and stained-glass windows, which were hidden behind walls, have been uncovered, Acorn has sought to include them in its plans so they will be retained for generations to come.
Beautiful green tiles which stretch almost the entire length of the bot- tom corridor had been plastered or papered over. Unusual and robust original wooden doors remain on many rooms and they will be retained, although where they will be used depends on how they match up to modern-day fire safety standards.
It’s this clash of passion to retain as much of The Rest’s history as possible, while ensuring the building meets modern standards that has made the project so challenging.
“It is a hugely complex project,” said James. “We spend days and days just walking around the building with the project team and architects making decisions. The first thing we had to do was strip it back so the building could breathe and then we uncovered lots of features that had been hidden.”
While the building itself, which was constructed in three sections between 1878 and 1909, is fundamentally sound, the various additions were not.
One conservatory on the front had sprung so many leaks that grass was growing on the carpet inside. An ugly metal fire escape attached to the front also has to go, as did the balconies, which, although an original feature, were too dangerous to keep. They will be replaced with glass balustrades.
And the discovery of various porches and doors after the removal of extensions meant plans were amended so the apartments won’t have one main entrance hall now, but their own separate and rather dramatic entrances.
James said Acorn is working closely with Bridgend council, which he praised for its help, to ensure as many as possible of the old features remain and they will even replace some of those that had been taken out during the building’s various incarna- tions over the years.
It was Dr James Lewis who came up with the idea for The Rest in the 19th century as he treated miners and other industrial workers in Maesteg. Realising they needed a break from damp and cramped working and living conditions, he opened the first Rest at cottages in Newton.
His wife, Charlotte, then wrote to Florence Nightingale to get her advice on building a bigger facility, and thanks to rich industrialist benefactors, including the Talbot family of Margam and the Brogdens, The Rest was born.
Providing posh apartments for well-off clients – the studio, one, two and three-bed apartments will cost between £150,000 and £500,000 – was not what Dr Lewis would have envisaged for the building.
But, instead of disintegrating further, The Rest is being given a new lease of life in a £5m to £6m project that’s got the developers, as well as the locals, excited.