If you are a Descendant, please see the separate section below. For Groups, please see our 'Group Visits' page here
The Visitor Centre is is now closed to the public for the winter, re-opening for the 2025 season as follows:
From 1 May 2025, open every Thursday and Friday, 10am until 3pm (last entry 2.30pm)
plus Special Events advertised throughout the year
Entry to the Centre in July and August is FREE to 'walk in' visitors, however we suggest a £5 donation per person for your visit which is very much appreciated and allows us to cover our ongoing running costs of the Centre, and support its future ongoing development. We are fully accessible with optional wider entrance at rear for wheelchairs. Well behaved,clean dogs on a lead are very welcome. You can also explore the village, the site of Knockaloe Camp and the graveyard (with internee and guard graves) all guided by our 'App'. For information on downloading the App when the Centre is closed, please click here. Delicious organic 'bean to cup' Coffee, hot chocolate and organic tea is available on a self service basis in our Garden Room where you can also purchase a selection of internment related books and sustainable shop items - all funds generated directly support the Centre. * We are required to be closed Friday of second weekend in August 2025 for The Royal Show at Knockaloe.
For 2025 we shall be opening for a longer season - please click here for 2025 public open season.
The Charity would love to hear stories from descendants of Knockaloe internees or guards or others who were part of this story. Please contact us well before arranging your visit on info@knockaloe.im to share your family story with us and/or to seek confirmation as to whether a family member was interned. Our public opening hours are as detailed above.
In addition to our public opening, we are also able to facilitate visits for descendants by appointment throughout April to September, Tuesday to Saturday (booked well in advance).
Visiting the Centre provides an invaluable experience to help in understanding what families experienced during WW1 at all of the internment camps, including at Knockaloe, and our scale model of Knockaloe and app interpreting the camp itself allows you to see exactly where your ancestor was interned.
If you would like more specific research into your ancestors internment, you can book for a specific Internee Review prior to your visit which we shall then go through with you in detail on the day, helping you to understand so much more about his specific experience and that of your family and showing you everything of relevance to your family's story and enabling time for you to properly ask any questions you may have of his specific and general experience - allow half a day for both the discusssions and private tour around the Centre, following which you will be able to go out and see where he was interned on the Camp itself.
As the preparatory work for each Internee Review and the visit itself required considerable specific work by the team, a minimum donation (payable in advance) is required to secure an appointment - contact us on info@knockaloe.im to find out more. Our researcher donates her time for this work, however she requests this donation to the Charity which are critical to cover the ongoing running costs of the Centre, support the future ongoing development of our interpretation, and in continuing to develop our underlying research and collation into the future, which in turn helps us to share more with visiting descendants.
With enough notice, we can can facilitate private Internee Review appointments between April and September outside normal opening, for which an additional private opening fee applies.
Although the Centre itself is closed during the winter period (October to March) when we focus on our research and collation, please E-mail info@knockaloe.im for further information regarding a future visit during our next open season or to share your family story. Please note that we do not offer an email based research service, Internee Reviews are available for those visiting allowing research to be discussed in person during your visit using the interpretations to develop those discussions.
For further information and to make a booking please E-mail info@knockaloe.im
Address:
The Centre for WW1 Internment, Patrick Old School Rooms, Patrick Corner, Patrick Village, Isle of Man, IM5 3AL
Please note that we do have CCTV in operation at the Centre and its surroundings.
Getting there:
The Centre for WW1 Internment is located in on the junction of the A27 and Patrick Road in Patrick Village on the west of the Island. From Peel follow signs to Glen Maye (A27), from St Johns follow signs to Castletown (A3) then signs to Patrick/Glen Maye (A30). For the location on Google Maps please click here
There is a car park directly in front of the Visitor Centre, however, please be cautious as the entrance is quite tight.
Linking the human stories and imagery with the camp location itself in an imaginative and interactive way to engage
visitors of all ages. After eight years of incredibly hard work, the Visitor Centre finally opened on 10 May 2019 and helps visitors to visualise the camp, understand what life would have been like within the camp and the village, and understand its impact on the internees and their families, the guards, the villagers, and the Island, as well as providing descendants with
assistance in finding out more about their own internee, guard or village family member and add their story to our archive for future generations.
Incredibly the Centre was destined to remain closed in 2020 with the Island’s borders shut as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic, those borders anticipated to remain closed for some of 2021, however we reopened anew in 2022 with many more exhibits and developments and had a great year. We had a wonderful 2023 with lots of visitors both local and overseas and we shall now look forward to welcoming you all again for our 2024 season.
This has been the culmination of so much work and we are delighted when we were finally able to commence work on the site back in 2017. The construction work by The Village Workshop team (pictured on the video below) involved taking down the crumbling, damp kitchen, toilet and boilerhouse extension at the back of Patrick Old School largely built on the old school wall, and replacing it with a light and bright extension housing the Schoolrooms’ Garden room, toilets and kitchen. Every stone from the old school wall has been reclaimed and rebuilt as the outer wall of the new dry and draft proof extension.
https://www.facebook.com/knockaloeinternmentcampiom/videos/890656477760382/