During the Second World War a large number of Italian Prisoners of War, many of whom had been captured in the North African Campaign, were sent to camps in Scotland. One such camp was Camp 60 on Lambholm in Orkney. Several hundred Italian Prisoners of War were sent to this windswept Orkney Island to help to build the Churchill Barriers to protect the Fleet anchorage at Scapa Flow after the attack on HMS Royal Oak when 800 men were lost.

The camp at Lambholm originally comprised thirteen huts and Nissen huts and later included a theatre and a recreation hut with a concrete billiard table. Next to the Camp square one of the prisoners, Domenico Chiocchetti, built, out of barbed wire and concrete, an impressive statue of St George slaying the dragon. But what the prisoners really wanted was a chapel.

Eventually in late 1943 the Commandant, Major T P Buckland, made available to the prisoners two Nissen huts. These were placed end to end and joined together. Chiocchetti set to work assisted by several others including Bruttapasta, a cement worker; Palumbo, a smith; Primavera and Micheloni, electricians; Barcaglioni, Battato, Devitto, Fornasier, Pennisi and Sforza. They created out of salvaged timber and scrap a beautiful chapel with remarkable interior decoration including an altar, sanctuary screen, painted glass windows and frescoes. The Italian prisoners left Orkney in the spring of 1945 and this Chapel and the statue of St George is now all that remains of Camp 60.

Included in the decoration is the illuminated prayer to St Francis

Lord make me an instrument of Thy peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon, where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.