Abandoned buildings in urban areas tend to be overrun by graffiti, rubble and rubbish. But there are some premises where nature has taken over places long forgotten by humans. From a plant-covered cinema to an abandoned lab and a penguin takeover at an old whaling station, here are the abandoned businesses where wildlife has fought back.

This grass-covered petrol pump stands in the Western Australian town of Wittenoom, 680 miles (1.1km) north of Perth. Described as the most contaminated site in the Southern Hemisphere, Wittenoom lost its town status in 1966. Why? The town was built near Wittenoom Gorge in 1946 to house workers from the nearby blue asbestos mine, and that asbestos has led to hundreds of deaths.

Banned in many countries, asbestos fibres can cause lung conditions like cancer and asbestosis when inhaled. So it's not surprising that there are signs surrounding Wittenoom that warn people not to visit as the surrounding area remains littered with blue asbestos. But the threat still doesn't deter some tourists or other visitors from stopping off at what is sometimes referred to as "Australia's Chernobyl" and posing at the derelict pump.

Even some of the final handful of residents of the contaminated town have refused to budge. Earlier this year, the Western Australia government decided to introduce the Wittenoom Closure Bill to shut it down entirely. In July, one of the last-remaining residents was reported to have accepted the offer and another one was in talks, but the third was still refusing to engage with the process. 

This abandoned and overgrown 17th-century mill is in a deep crevasse in Sorrento, near Naples. The valley was created in a huge eruption which devastated the Mediterranean region 35,000 years ago and was once bursting with life and abundant resources such as walnut, cherry and olive trees. Mills are known to have been here since the 1400s, powered by the Vernotico River.

By the 18th century, the valley mills were operating at their peak, producing over a million bushels of wheat flour each year. Other businesses also sprung up, including a sawmill which provided the wood for local furniture makers. There was also a wash-house and tall towers, which were filled with water for use by local people during times of drought.

But the milling of flour gradually moved to nearby pasta mills and the businesses were eventually abandoned in the 1940s after becoming unprofitable. An extremely humid, not to mention uninhabitable, microclimate was also created after the valley's access to the sea was cut off by urban developments. Now, the aptly-named Vallone dei Mulini's – Valley of the Mills – main purpose in life is as a tourist attraction.

The Derby Hippodrome is a Grade II-listed variety theatre built in 1914. The roofless building, now covered in plants, is a rare example from the period of a variety theatre built for both live theatre and cinema. Designed by architects Marshall & Tweedy of Newcastle upon Tyne, the Hippodrome had an elaborate first-floor foyer, lounges and an elegant dress circle balcony. 

Famous acts such as Gracie Fields and George Formby played here, until the building was converted into a cinema in 1930. It served as a filmhouse for 20 years until a live theatre programme was reintroduced in 1950, with Shirley Bassey and Benny Hill among those to tread the boards. But it shut nine years later after bosses deemed the theatre no longer financially viable and was sold and converted into a bingo hall in 1962.

The Hippodrome was given Grade II-listed status in 1996, largely for its decorative plasterwork, but the bingo hall closed in 2007. The theatre fell victim to arson and vandalism and suffered substantial damage in 2008 when the then-owner carried out repair works, including removing the roof which left it exposed to the elements. The Derby Hippodrome Restoration Trust is now seeking to restore the building and return it to its former glory. 

The New World shopping mall in Bangkok was built in the early Eighties but closed down in 1997 after it was found to have breached planning regulations, standing at 11 storeys when the planning blueprint only allowed for seven. A fire two years later destroyed the roof, meaning the floor started filling with water whenever it rained. This led to a major mosquito problem, much to the frustration to local residents, who introduced freshwater tilapia fish to eat the pests. 

The fish quickly multiplied and soon filled the "pond" on the 5,000-square-foot (465-square-metre) ground floor of the abandoned mall. Tourist Jesse Rockwell, who came across the derelict mall while backpacking around Thailand, told the Daily Mail that you could hear splashing from the building, despite being in a busy area of the city. 

Thousands of tilapia, carp and catfish were eventually relocated in 2015. Workers from the fisheries department used nets to catch the fish and relocate them to various wildlife centres, before releasing them into reservoirs, rivers and canals. But the derelict and roofless mall is still home to a variety of plant life and the odd fish. 

Discover abandoned shopping malls and stores across the world

The Russian mine at Pyramiden on the Norwegian peninsula of Svalbard, north of the Arctic circle, was established in the 1930s. Managed by the Soviet-run Trust Arktikugol, the coal mine and surrounding town particularly thrived after World War II. As Russia's sole settlement in the West, Pyramiden was something of a Soviet show pony. But after years of prosperity, mining at Pyramiden declined thanks to a limited supply of mineable coal.

The situation was compounded by the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s. The fatal crash of a charter flight carrying 141 workers and their relatives from Moscow in 1996 also contributed to the decision. The Pyramiden mine was closed down two years later and the site was left derelict. Gulls and other Arctic birds have since settled in the windows of the old mine buildings.

Due to the cold conditions, the rate of decay at the abandoned buildings is incredibly slow, essentially preserving the site as something of a Soviet-era time capsule. The only people who live here are the eight who manage the site, dropping to four during the winter months. Otherwise the only visitors are reindeer, the odd polar bear, and tourists who visit during the short summer period.

The remains of Thomas "Carbide" Willson's workshop are slowly being overrun by wildlife in Quebec's Gatineau Park. Willson made a name for himself by inventing the process by which we create the industrial chemical calcium carbide. But he was extremely paranoid about other people stealing his ideas, leading to him building this secretive laboratory in the woods.

The site was built later in Willson's career, when he became particularly interested in innovations in the fertiliser industry. He began to search for ways of cramming more phosphoric acid into the product. His experiments soon hit such a grand scale that he even built his own power station, which created enough energy to drive a phosphoric acid condenser, here at Meech Lake.

But Willson's power station caused the water level of the lake to rise, making him deeply unpopular with locals. But the inventor continued with his projects despite increasing animosity and he eventually fell into bankruptcy. Willson died of a heart attack in 1915 and his lab fell into wrack and ruin. Sightseers and hikers still visit the site, although very little remains that hints at its chemical past.

With its roof now overrun with vegetation, Swansea's Palace Theatre was built in 1888 and saw comic greats like Laurel and Wise, Charlie Chaplin and Anthony Hopkins tread the boards here over the years. Its unusual position on a triangular site has led to it being architecturally compared to the Flatiron building in New York City. As well as a music hall, the Palace Theatre has served as a cinema, a bingo hall and nightclub.

The Palace closed as a nightclub in 2006 and fell into an increasingly dangerous state of disrepair thanks to water and plant-growth damage. Restoration work 10 years later made the building weather-tight again, but vegetation began regrowing on its distinctive facade. In addition, the work completely blocked up openings so that there was no ventilation around the building, which sparked fears it could compound the existing damage.

But in good news for the dilapidated theatre, Swansea council recently announced it was to take over ownership of the Grade II-listed building in order to create community, retail and office space inside as part of a £5 million ($6.5m) redevelopment. The authority is now working with the Welsh government to identify funding for the project, which is earmarked to take around three years. 

The abandoned Virginia Renaissance Faire in Fredericksburg opened as a permanent Tudor wonderland in 1996 but closed its doors just three years later. Renaissance faires are basically medieval festivals, offering attendees a change to dress up in mid-1600s costumer, eat traditional Tudor meals such as mutton washed down with mead, and watch traditional events like jousting. This one was built on land once owned by George Washington's mother, Mary. 

The Renaissance faire site was supposed to recreate a busy medieval feudal port, complete with timbered Tudor-style buildings. But, despite opening to much fanfare, the festival site was plagued by muggy summers and swampy land. "Ren-fest" goers stopped coming and the owners shut down the site after poor ticket sales. It is now overrun by the wilderness in which it was built.

The spirit of the Virginia Renaissance faire lives on at a separate event in nearby Spotsylvania, while the weeds overtake the increasingly unstable buildings at Fredericksburg. But wannabe trespassers beware: the derelict and privately-owned site is now leased out to a local hunting club, which actively use it for shooting, hunting and similar recreational activities throughout the year. 

Discover America's abandoned towns failling into ruin

At its peak, the now-abandoned Packard plant employed more than 40,000 people on Detroit's east side. The weed-covered former automobile factory dates back to 1903, when the name "Packard" was synonymous with luxury car making. Indeed, the plant was considered the most advanced automobile manufacturing facility in the world when it opened.

Packard shifted from hand assembly to a rudimentary assembly line in the 1920s, but the old buildings weren't greatly suited to more modern car making. It halted production altogether at the start of World War II and began making aircraft engines. But the facility never regained its pre-war momentum, despite modernisation efforts, and the last car rolled off the production line here in the mid-1950s. The site operated as an industrial park and a site for other businesses well into the 1990s. 

The colossal site is now home to little else than urban wildlife, with greenery slowly creeping over the old buildings. Although, surprisingly, the city only recently evicted the plant's last resident, a 74-year-old automotive worker called Allan Hill, who claimed to have agreement with the owner to live there. Despite all this, the factory's fortunes are looking up with Peruvian businessman Fernando Palazuelo having plans to clean up the factory, once the symbol of the US car-making industry.

Discover Incredible abandoned places in every US state

Grytviken whaling station on the south Atlantic island of South Georgia was first spotted by a London merchant in 1675 and claimed by James Cook 100 years later. The first permanent settlement was established here by Norwegian captain Carl Anton Larsen in 1904 for his newly-registered Compañía Argentina de Pesca (CAP) amid a boom in the whaling industry. The station filled over 27,000 barrels of oil between 1907 and 1908, up from 12,000 the year before.

But the whaling industry became a victim of its own success and the global economic and political situation over the next few decades. By the mid-1930s, the over-hunted humpback whale became nearly extinct in the Antarctic while the price of whale oil was at a record low. However, Grytviken was one of only two whaling stations in South Georgia that stayed active during World War II, thanks in part due to financial reserves from its earlier boom years. 

Despite some attempts at modernisation, in 1962 CAP was bought out by a group of Japanese businessmen, who gave up on it and closed it down three years later. Since then, the Grytviken whaling station has become a home for an array of wildlife including terns, penguins and seals, all basking in the sun near the old boilers where the whale carcasses were boiled up – only to be disturbed by the occasional tourist. 

Now read From disused stadiums to deserted airports: billion-dollar wastes of money