No matter your religious beliefs few visitors fail to be dumbstruck at the sheer determination and ingenuity that went into the construction of Orkney’s bijou Italian Chapel. Resigned to spending the rest of the Second World War as prisoners on Orkney, the 500 captive Italians here set about conjuring up a special place of worship on remote Lamb Holm.
Ironically the former Axis soldiers’ day job was erecting the Churchill Barriers, which were built to help keep out German submarines. In any spare time they had their camp’s priest Father Giacombazzi oversaw the surreal construction.
Two Nissen huts were welded together and then covered with plasterboard. The altar was fashioned from spare concrete from the barrier construction and the impressively authentic renaissance façade carefully designed so that it hid the shape of the original huts.
The main talent behind the interior decoration of The Italian Chapel, Domenico Chiocchetti, actually opted to stay and finish the job when his fellow prisoners were released and today it remains a thing of real beauty that is made even more impressive by the dramatic scenery all around.
Lamb Holm, Orkney.
For more information call the VisitOrkney Travel Centre in Kirkwall, tel: +44 (0)1856 872856.