POW Camp 15 (later 13) Shap Wells Hotel

The Shap Wells Hotel opened in 1833 and closed in 1939 due to the war.

In 1941 it was used as POW camp number 15, later changed to 13. The hotel grounds and part of the golf course were surrounded by a fence with double barbed wire and searchlights.

The rooms on the first and second floors could accommodate 200/250 prisoners. On the ground floor there was a dining room and offices for the camp management. The guards were housed in Nissen huts on the grounds..

The first POWs arrived in February 1941.
Italian and German officers were held here, including the survivors of the Bismarck which was sunk in May 1941. Among them was Burkard Baron von Müllenheim-Rechberg, the highest-ranking survivor of the Bismarck.

The first camp commander was Major Guy Alexander Ingram Dury, M.C. (1895 – 1976) of the London Regiment and the Grenadier Guards. He retired in 1931 but was recalled on the outbreak of war and became a brevet major when he took up his post at Shap Wells.

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Source

• Text: Martin Damen
• Photos: Martin Damen