Ukrainian Chapel

This unassuming little prefab hides a real surprise inside. About a mile south of Lockerbie this blink-and-you'd-miss-it spot houses a little chapel, built by Ukrainian prisoners of war after they were housed at a former Italian prisoner-of-war camp after the end of World War 2. The Italian chapel in Orkney is much better known (it was built by Italian prisoners of war who had been captured and sent to Orkney and who wanted a place of worship in the camp), but this one is much less well known.

The prisoners-of-war had been volunteers and conscripts from Ukraine who had fought on the German side against the Russian/Soviet army, wanting to protect their home from the Soviet threat but finding themselves on the wrong side once the war was over. If they had been sent back to Ukraine after the war they would almost certainly have been killed or deported to Siberia as enemy fighters, but instead they were offered the option of staying in the UK or Canada. 7000, mostly farm workers, settled in the UK, 450 of them housed in the former prisoner of war camp here, where they were allowed to convert one of the prefab huts into a chapel.

Unfortunately my camera chose this point to have a hissy fit and wouldn't take pictures (it's alright now), so I had to take pictures on my phone, and not one of the ones I took inside the chapel was in focus! There are some photos of the interior though at this link.