Abandoned Village, South Wales

[smileysal]

Cheers for the update DD, bloody scum ripping the floors up and lighting fires in there. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!

Spoke to dad again yesterday, he said the boys village was called Gilston! but that's when he was there, in 1937/38. The following year in 1939 they moved up from Wales to Derbyshire, so he never had the chance to go back.

He said they didn't have a swimming pool there when he was there, they just went down to the beach and swam in the sea.

Cheers,

Sal

 

[duckandcover]

It's good to see that all that work on the bike pick payed off, the old sports hall was realy bizzare all i can assume is that chavs had been in there but a clean patch had been carved out of the outside of the hall and it had been brushed down. They had allso buit some strange ramps on the inside that made no sense.

The church hall was well and truly on its way to distruction about half of the floor had been removed and various bits of stonework had been removed and smashed up.

By far though the one place i do recomend that you stay away from is the portacabin structure that is near the road that runs parralel to the site, there has ben a massive fire in there at some point in the past and the top floor on one side is totaly unstable i mean the floor was creaking underfoot and bowing so i got out of there quick.

However it was a nice visit during my time in wales!!!

Thanks Mike!!

 

[randomnut]

Nice, that looks like a rare and interesting visit! Some very good shots there. It's a shame some people see the need to vandalise places like that, guess it won't be standing for much longer

 

[cogito]

Spoke to dad again yesterday, he said the boys village was called Gilston! but that's when he was there, in 1937/38.

Gileston is the nearest actual village to Boys Village, just a few hundred metres down the lanes.

 

[fatdeeman]

God this place gets worse and worse, been there a couple of times now but never got round to taking pictures.

I found out about the place through cardiffrail.

It's a very haunting place, it's like a little world hidden away from sight.

 

[duckandcover]

The noise of the powerplant makes the whole place verry errie, and the fact that there are houses nearby adds a risc element too it!

 

[Trudger]

wow, first vacuum I ever used was one of those in the picture !!! was in better condition tho'

 

[Nigelwyn]

Really good pictures.
I've seen the sign on the road as I've driven past but never thought to go and see what it was.
Thanks for showing us.

 

[BigLoada]

This is wild! I dream of discovering a whole village abandoned. Must have been quite a bizarre feeling being somewhere like that.

 

[theterrorwheel]

on a recent visit this place is now cleared of most of the interesting stuff, and now appears very close to being knocked down so if you want a visit best make it asap.will load some pics if people want them.

 

[ww2nut]

memories

i remember skiving off work on the field that looks now to be full of grass, at that time it was cut short and football pitches were laid out , after half hour security came and told us to leave, but at that time the whole place was immaculate.

 

[cogito]

on a recent visit this place is now cleared of most of the interesting stuff, and now appears very close to being knocked down so if you want a visit best make it asap.will load some pics if people want them.

Went there today, theres a few buildings already demolished. The rest have been pretty much stripped of debris.

Pics of current site condition to follow.

 

[cogito]

Jan 2009: Visited with Jonas-Smith

The memorial, same angle as last time. Sadly there is graffiti on the back of it now

Light switches in the Church. The Church has been stripped bare, although thankfully no more of the marble floor slabs had been looted from last time.

Likewise all the debris littering the Gym has been removed:

Self portrait in the Gym. As you can see even the planks that formed the seating have been removed.

The cupboard door in the Gym. The doors to the changing rooms had gone, as had the changing rooms themselves. They'd been demolished.

There were a lot more graffiti tags than last time too.

Although it was good to see that some original stuff had been left in place:

This panel is pretty similar to the one in London Rd Tunnel Shelter. They're both from the 1930s.

There was the odd little corner that looked relatively untouched.

I love the soft natural light that the whole site seems to be blessed with every time I visit.

The Kitchen area. The back end of this building had been demolished. Shame seeing that it had the most old artefacts in it.

This was there last time. No idea if it was chavs or workers.

There was some pretty intense dry-rot in some of the remaining buildings.

And think of this next time you feel sickened by your local venues piss-pots.

Obligatory corridor shot:

1930 - 2009?

Shame to see it being torn down. And to have a lot of debris removed. Mind you I'd rather it was removed by workers than chavs. There were some pretty old bits and pieces in there.

 

[magaz]

it's a shame to see the place in such a sorry state. I used to go down years ago when it was an airsoft site, it wen under the name "Dragon Valley"

They had allso buit some strange ramps on the inside that made no sense.

they may have been the old barricades that we used as cover... I remember tripping over one of them in the middle of a "firefight" and broke part of my knee on a brick

Another amusing story... the first time I played there, I fell into the pool and gave myself concussion!

I've got some photo's lying around "somewhere" from when we played there, i'll dig them out

 

[night crawler]

Some briliant photos there but whatis it with the local low life kids that they have to smash up the toilets and leave there crappy marks every where. It's like that at Fairmile in the old laundery and O/T blocks.Idiots.
I feel it is shame such history is going to disapear.

 

[cogito]

Thought it would be interesting to do this today:

 

[Urban-Warrior]

Thought it would be interesting to do this today:

an awsome comparison dude.. gimme a shout when the rest of your pcis are up.. was a good day to say the least

 

[noodles88]

Amazing pictures!! Seems such a beautiful yet eerie location...makes me want to head down south to visit it!!!
Great photography

 

[chocmint]

This is Boys Village near St. Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan. I don't know much about, but I know it's been abandoned for a few years now. The Wiki entry on the place is less than useful.

Having recently returned to the area I thought I'd best pay it a visit with my long time pal and fellow explorer duckandcover.

Hello! Fascinating stuff you posted about the abandoned village, great photo's.
This is what we do: http://www.chocmint.com http://www.chocmintmanagement.com

We are looking for a creative studio. We'd prefer a creative village, bringing families together again, creativity on a huge scale. Who do we contact to find out how to take over this village on a long lease with a view to buying, if it's available?
Can you help?

Warm Regards Rob Daniel, Paula Daniel, Dave McCleery

 

[swanseamale47]

This is Boys Village near St. Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan. I don't know much about, but I know it's been abandoned for a few years now. The Wiki entry on the place is less than useful.

Having recently returned to the area I thought I'd best pay it a visit with my long time pal and fellow explorer duckandcover.

Hello! Fascinating stuff you posted about the abandoned village, great photo's.
This is what we do: http://www.chocmint.com http://www.chocmintmanagement.com

We are looking for a creative studio. We'd prefer a creative village, bringing families together again, creativity on a huge scale. Who do we contact to find out how to take over this village on a long lease with a view to buying, if it's available?
Can you help?

Warm Regards Rob Daniel, Paula Daniel, Dave McCleery

Rob unless you have a huge pot of money I'd forget it, it would cost a fortune to put back into a safe condition, just the rewiring would cost probably 50-60K. Realy your looking at millions to put it all back properly (on top of the initial purchase costs). Then theres the locals, would they want the place up and running again? I suspect not, and that could be a big problem.
The local council should know who owns the land, but it is going to be a big expensive job.