TODAY, Calderstones' Hospital specialises in treating people with learning disabilities, but in the past it looked after wounded soldiers who had fought in the First World War.

The giant Calderstones mental hospital, near Whalley, was nearing completion at the end of 1914.

But the horrific level of First World War casualties on the Western Front led to it being pressed into service as the 2,110-bed Queen Mary's Military Hospital.

More than 57,000 wounded British and Allied troops were treated there before the hospital eventually took on its intended role in 1922.

A special railway halt was built in the grounds.

It could take as little as 24 hours for soldiers to be transported from the battlefield across the channel to ports like Southampton and on by rail to Calderstones.

Many arrived still with the mud of trenches on their uniforms.

Wards at the hospital were named alphabetically, with 'L' being omitted because of its grim phonetic association with 'hell'.

Here, in this picture dug out from the Lancashire Telegraph's archives, bedfast convalescents wait for the cinema show, staged on Saturdays, by the hospital's entertainment committee.

And today, not far from the main Calderstones building, you can still see the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery where soldiers who failed to recover from their wounds, rest.