Monday 29 August 2016

Orkney - The Italian Chapel

The Italian Chapel is a highly ornate Catholic chapel on the island of Lamb Holm. It was built during World War II by Italian prisoners.  They were held in Camp 60, on the the previously uninhabited island, while they constructed the Churchill Barriers.  It was built from two Nissen huts, joined end-to-end and utilised the limited materials available to the prisoners.  The corrugated interior of the huts was covered with plaster and painted to resemble brick and carved stone.  The altar, altar rail and font were constructed from concrete, left over from work on the barriers.  A concrete façade conceals the front of the hut, making the building look like a stone built church.

Most of the interior decoration, including all of the the sanctuary end of the chapel, was done by a prisoner named Domenico Chiocchetti.  Like the Churchill barriers themselves, the chapel was not completed until the end of the war. Chiocchetti stayed on for a while, after his fellow prisoners were released, in order to complete his work.  The chapel is the only remaining building of Camp 60.  Since the end of the war it has been restored twice.  Once in the 1960s, when Chiocchetti returned to help with the work, and again in the 1990s.


 

 








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