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The Italian Chapel
 The Italian Chapel, "the Miracle of Camp 60",
built by Italian Prisoners of War of Camp 60, who arrived
in January 1942 to help build the Churchill Barriers, is
an unusual memorial to the war.
To brighten up the cheerless camp of Nissen huts the Italians
made paths and planted flowerbeds. Domenico Chiocchetti made
the St George and the Dragon statue from barbed wire and
cement, to preside over the camp square. The prisoners soon
had a theatre and a recreational hut complete with a concrete
billiard table, but they lacked a chapel.
In late 1943 two Nissen huts were joined end to end and
Domenico Chiocchetti set to work, aided by a small number
of other POWs. One end was to be the Chapel, the other a
school.
The hut was lined with plasterboard and an altar with altar-rail
cast in concrete. Chiocchetti painted the Madonna and Child
behind the altar which is based on a 19th century painting
by Nicolo Barabino inspired by a card his mother had given
to him. He also frescoed a White Dove, the symbol of the
Holy Spirit, at the centre of the vault and included the
symbols of the four Evangelists around it, as well as two
Cherubim and two Seraphim lower down.
 The upper parts of the interior appear like brick with vaulting,
while the lower walls are painted to look like carved marble.
The “vaults” in the ceiling are especially well
executed, and the visual effect is quite stunning. Palumbo,
a metalworker, made candelabra and the rood screen and gates.
A façade was erected with the help of Bruttapasta,
with an archway and pillars. A belfry was mounted on top
and a moulded head of Christ in red clay was placed on the
front of the arch. The whole exterior of the hut was then
covered with a thick coat of cement, never in short supply
during the building of the Barriers!
Chiocchetti returned to Orkney in 1960, when he did much
to restore the internal paintwork of the chapel. In 1961
his hometown, Moena, near Bolzano in the Dolomites, gifted
a wayside shrine, a carved figure of Christ erected outside
the Chapel, to the people of Orkney. More recently much exterior
work has been done to restore and preserve the Chapel and
the memorial statue for the future.
 The Italian Chapel is now one of the most-visited monuments
in Orkney and is a fitting memorial to those lost in wartime.
Chiocchetti, in addressing the Orcadian people, said, "The
chapel is yours - for you to love and preserve. I take with
me to Italy the remembrance of your kindness and wonderful
hospitality. I shall remember you always, and my children
shall learn from me to love you. I thank (you)....for having
given me the joy of seeing again the little chapel of Lambholm
where I, in leaving, leave a part of my heart.".
It is somewhat ironic that most of the many visitors to
Orkney cross the Churchill Barriers. They come not to remember
the English war leader, or to marvel at military engineering,
but to visit our little Italian shrine, which is a monument
to hope and faith in exile. |
