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Evidence of the Camp today

Patrick Old Schoolrooms is a former parochial school built in 1877 for the children of the parish of Patrick in the west of the Isle of Man, now the Centre for WW1 Internment at Knockaloe and Visitor Centre for Knockaloe, Patrick Old Schoolrooms is situated opposite the entrance to Knockaloe Moar Farm, the location of the internment camp for “enemy aliens” of the British Government under its Aliens Restrictions Act of 1914, passed the day after the World War I broke out. The camp opened on 17 November 1914 and, following the sinking of the “Lusitania” in May 1915, Knockaloe Camp was expanded to ultimately hold

“nearly 24,000 prisoners in 23 compounds inside barbed wire, with 4,000 old soldiers acting as armed National Guard, and 250 civilians attending to their wants and comforts…..The camp at Knockaloe was three miles in circumference; 695 miles of barbed wire surrounded the compounds” Samuel Norris “Manx Memories and Movements

 

Our App takes Visitors into both the graveyard and onto the site of the camp itself, with QR markers pinpointing positions of interest and interpreting the evidence of the Camp today. Scan each QR code marker to learn about what had been situated at any given point marked, as well as the evidence of the Camp and its inhabitants which can still be seen today. For information on downloading and using the Knockaloe App, please click here.

   

 

Once the camp had been dismantled after WW1, the area returned to a farm and the post WW1 image of Patrick below shows the fields of Knockaloe in the foreground, the church and the Schoolmasters house (adjacent to the Schoolrooms) can be clearly seen, and the road leads towards Peel:

Photo Credit: Mannin Collections Archive

Even today, whilst an initial view of Knockaloe suggests that little remains of the Camp today, in fact the evidence is very much present both on Knockaloe Farm and in the village of Patrick, and its churchyard.

 


Photo Credit: Mannin Collections Archive