Unfortunately the pic includes a bunch of tourists but it kind of doesn’t matter.
This is the interior of the Italian Chapel in Orkney. Built by Italian prisoners of war during the Second World War, it is a triumph of faith and art. On the outside it is a pair of Nissan huts with a fascia. Inside it is full of the love and skill of the artists who were imprisoned hundreds of miles from home in Italy on a cold and bleak island in the far north.
The story of the chapel imbues it. This is a place so full of love and hope that it transcends all faiths. I have been there twice – both times cold and bleak days, but came out full of warmth and hope.
The story is here:
18 comments:
Agreed about the place, mim. A touch of Italian style on a windy edge of the world. When I've been there, I'm often reminded of a very good film starring Phyllis Logan, Another time, Another Place (1983) about Italian PoWs in Scotland.
Yes, it is a very good film, that.
I think I saw a documentary about this chapel once, perhaps when the sculptor guy came back (see the linked page). It was strangely not incongruous in the landscape, I thought.
I wonder what Brit POWs would have built if they'de been stuck in a desert corner of Sicily, for instance? A football pitch, probably.
Orkney made me cry. With rage and frustration. I was cycling against the wind, you see.
Enchanting place, no really it is. And the whisky's not bad.
The evidence suggests British POWs would have built a tunnel and tried to escape, doesn't it?
anyone know if it's still in use as a chapel? If the story answers that, I missed it.
munni - it is still a place of worship and they hold masses and other stuff there when they can. It is very much a place of living faith.
Offie - the malt in Orkney comes from the Highland Park distillery which is pleasingly free of tourist stuff. No tours, and a little shop that sells almost only single malt.
They do sell hats made in South America which I found a bit disappointing. Earlier that day I had bought a splendid hat in Kirkwall, made by some son or daughter of Orkney and really hats like mine should be sold at Highland Park.
A tunnel to escape from sicily? That's bound to end in (very salty)tears.
Mimi, Highland Park may be the reason why I missed that chapel so completely. I didn't miss Brodgar, though, and right on Midsummer night too. That's where I learned from a local that you lose most of your body heat through the top of your head, and that a hat is more efficient than a jacket in keeping warm.
So keep that hat on, Mimi.
Brodgar? I can give you The Ring and also The Stones of Steness. Oh and my Orkney hat is famed in our village - wonderful colours.
I've become quite fascinated by this place and keep coming back to look at it. It's almost making me want to go to mass, and for a lapsed and bitter half-catholic, half-hindu, that's saying something.
Mimi, pictures of the hat please.
what a delight Mimi!
M.SideinTah, speaking as one who grew up believing fervently that we lose 60% of our body heat through our head, I was very interested to read in a recent GU Bad Science piece that actually it's an old wives tale and not worth the paper it's written on.
I felt very foo'ish when I read the part of their argument that went (something like) "If it were true then we'd be warmer with no trousers and a bobble hat than with no bobble hat and trousers".
I don't know about the Orks but here where it can get a little nippy (-11c today, I kid you not:((, you rarely see folk with toques on and no trou's. (tho at this time of year it's unusual to see them in trou's and no toque too - there might be a pome in this...
Trousers? Trousers, trousers, trousers... Nope, I'm drawing a blank. You'll have to remind me.
similar to the pantaloons you like but slightly less rococo
I was going to look seriously for a pic of my Orkney hat but am now laughing uproariously at the pantaloons that I am fit for nothing.
thanks file, and that's the first time I have seen the normally architectural term roccoco applied to cotton drawers!
D'you think people actually dress their children in those??
"how I love to hear the choir in the chapel in the moonlight"
is this the place which inspired Dino or is it the whisky from the Highland park distillery that he drunk till the moon turned to dark?
munni, half-catholic, half-hindu :stop
torturing yourself, can't you make up your mind?
Mimi, what a beautiful place. It looks serene. I bet it's wonderful when there aren't any other people there cluttering the place up.
Have you been to the Rosslyn Chapel? I know it's been made famous by all the Dan Brown hoo-ha, but it really is astounding, and interesting how they have sculptures there of plants which are only found in the Americas which pre-date the discovery of the Americas. I also spent ages trying to work out the musical code on the ceiling, but gave up in the end. Anyway, Dan Brown aside it's well worth a visit and to get the guided tour.
I went to Rosslyn the first time I visited Scotland many years ago. It is fab and I hardly recognised the description in DB's book when I wasted several hours of my life reading The Da Vinci Code. What tosh!
Hello,
You might be interested in a book that's just come out about the chapel, called The Italian Chapel. It's an historical fiction but tells the true story of the chapel's creation.
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