Car falls in sinkhole at Brecon Beacons castle

A car has fallen into a sinkhole in a car park of a castle in the Brecon Beacons.

Luke Davies was surprised when he got a call from his father asking him to go up to the castle where his mother was at work.

"He was away and said: 'Could you go up to Craig Y Nos castle? Your mum's car has fallen into a sinkhole'."

He went as soon he could, initially under the impression that it was not that serious.

"When I got there I was really surprised," he said.

The hole was about 10ft (3m) at its deepest, he said, and the car had fallen in bonnet-first and was wedged against the other side of the hole.

"It must have happened within five to 10 minutes, Mr Davies, 30, from Coelbren in Powys, said.

A visitor had seen it happen and alerted staff, who told his mother, Karen.

Both doors were dented and the rear door on the driver side could not be opened

"She was shocked at first. She was due to finish an hour later. She thought it was a joke at first," Mr Davies said.

The general manager managed to attach a tow rope to the car to prevent it from falling further.

"You could hear the ground giving way every so often," Mr Davies said.

They think the sinkhole could have been caused by an underground stream of water that runs from the mountain opposite, possibly leading to erosion under the overflow car park.

Once the recovery vehicle arrived, they considered using a crane as they were concerned about further damaging the car.

"In the end they went for it. I thought they were going to do a lot more damage but they didn't," he said.

The door panels were damaged and they were unable to open one of the rear doors.

"Ideally, we'd like to have it repaired," Mr Davies said. "But we were all just grateful that nothing worse had happened."