Italian Chapel

The Italian Chapel is a highly ornate Catholic chapel on Lamb Holm in Orkney, Scotland. It was built during the Second World War by Italian prisoners of war, who were housed on the previously uninhabited island while they constructed the Churchill Barriers to the east of Scapa Flow. Only the concrete foundations of the other buildings of the prisoner-of-war camp survive. The chapel was not completed until after the end of the war, and was restored in the 1960s and again in the 1990s. It is a popular tourist attraction, and a Category A listed building.

It is in the Roman Catholic Parish of Our Lady & St Joseph in Orkney, part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aberdeen.

Construction

550 Italian prisoners of war, captured in North Africa during the Second World War, were brought to Orkney in 1942. They worked on the construction of the Churchill Barriers, four causeways created to block sea access to Scapa Flow. 200 were based at Camp 60 on Lamb Holm.

The chapel was constructed from limited materials by the prisoners in the form of a tin tabernacle, and comprises two Nissen huts joined end-to-end. The corrugated interior was then covered with plasterboard and the altar and altar rail were constructed from concrete left over from work on the barriers. Most of the interior decoration was done by Domenico Chiocchetti, a prisoner from Moena in Trentino, northern Italy.

When his fellow prisoners were released shortly before the end of the war, Chiocchetti remained on the island to finish decorating the newly consecrated chapel.

Preservation

The chapel is used for worship and is a tourist attraction, receiving over 100,000 visitors every year. It has become a symbol of reconciliation in the United Kingdom.

Philip Paris wrote two books, one fiction and one non-fiction, about the building of the chapel. The 2009 novel The Chapel at the Edge of the World by Kirsten Mckenzie covers the chapel's building.

In 2014, a special Mass was held at the chapel to mark its 70th anniversary.

In 2015, professional art restorer Antonella Papa offered and had her services accepted to restore the chapel's frescoes, spending a month on the work. She continued this work with the help of local volunteers at the end of October 2017.