View of the Italian Chapel, Lamb Holm, from North West

Description View of the Italian Chapel, Lamb Holm, from North West

Date 23/8/1997

Catalogue Number SC 408420

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of C 73198 CN

Scope and Content World War II Italian Chapel, Lamb Holm, Orkney Islands The construction of the Churchill Barriers across the four eastern channels of Scapa Flow was begun in 1940 and continued for much of the remainder of World War II. As work progressed, they came to be recognised less as military barriers and more as civilian causeways, which is what they eventually became in 1945. Because of other wartime demands, workers for the project were in short supply, and a relaxed interpretation of the Geneva Convention allowed the labour force to be augmented substantially by Italian prisoners-of-war from early 1942 onwards. A chapel at Camp 60 on Lamb Holm remains a picturesque memorial to the Italian contribution and to its principal creator, Domenico Chiocchetti. It was one of two chapels built in Orkney by Italian prisoners-of-war, another one having once stood at Camp 34 on Burray. This oblique view of the entrance front of the Italian chapel shows the two conjoined Nissen huts which stand behind the gabled frontispiece. The semicircular roof, characteristic of this type of hut (which is named after its inventor, Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Nissen) has a protective covering of felt, and the interior is lit by a pair of dormer windows in each side wall. The shrine was erected in 1961, and the carving of the crucified Christ was a gift from Moena, a village in the Dolomites which was home to Domenico Chiocchetti, creator of the chapel. At the heart of the Orkney archipelago, Scapa Flow was the main fleet anchorage for the Royal Navy during both World Wars. Its vital importance led to the creation of one of the most concentrated defence networks in Britain. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap