Document record MAB53499 - MONYMUSK

Site of a World War II prisoner-of-war camp, Camp 111, German Working Camp.

Site of a World War II Prisoner of War camp, Camp 111, German Working Camp. The camp was also known as 'Deer Park, Monymusk'. It held Italians and then Germans and Ukranians. It covered 25 acres with a capacity for holding 1,300 men in approximately 23 accomodation huts and 68 tents.

The huts had a concrete base and frame, and were built from hollow bricks with a pitched corrugated asbestos roof. The huts were used as sleeping and living quarters for the officers as well as the prisoners. They were heated by a pot-bellied stove and those at Monymusk housed 35 men sleeping on simple wooden bunks. There were also blocks for the latrines, wash-houses, cook house, boiler house, canteen, stores and medical areas.

The prisoners were used as a mobile workforce on the local farms for harvesting, digging ditches and repairing fences. A bus would collect the prisoners each day and take them to nearby farms to work.

The camp became a hostel for Polish and European refugees at the end of the war. Some of the Catholic refugees built a small chapel in one of the huts. They constructed the altar from wood, cardboard and tin and a Urkranian artist decorated it with paintings of famous Saints and a copy of Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper over the altar. There was also an elaborate chandelier made from biscuit tins.

The camp was demolished completely in the early 1980s. There was a satellite camp at Alford. A camp list for Camp 111 also shows a hand written alteration which refers to another camp at Harlaw, Inverurie, but the location is unclear and it is also not known whether this was a satellite camp or a separate one.

DEFENCE OF BRITAIN PROJECT, n.d., LETTERS, DoB records (Bibliographic reference). SAB4054.

Oct 15 1953 , F21:58/RAF/1296/0071, F21:58/RAF/1296/0071 (Air-vertical Photograph). SAB15647.

Record last edited

Mar 24 2026 10:56AM