Hut 9 at former Prisoner of War Camp (198) and Special Camp XI, Island Farm

Hut 9 is a low, one-storey prefabricated structure with cast concrete wings meeting at a central brick ablution block with rear 2-storey brick tower housing a water tank over boiler room. Felt-covered concrete slate roof with shallow pitch and ridge vents, supported by paired concrete roof trusses and reinforced uprights. Projecting eaves supported by external angle brackets at head of uprights.

Plain window openings (chamfered to inside) set into concrete wall-panels, rudimentary concrete dripmoulds. Windows have small-pane glazing in metal frames (original type was a metal casement with vertical glazing bar). The rear windows are boarded over. The doorway to the SW gable end has a plain porch with angle pilasters and a recessed door frame with fanlight. Lock plates indicate that the doors were closed from outside.

Not inspected at the time of survey (May 1998). Previous inspection (1989) recorded: long spinal corridors to the wings with chamfered trusses giving triangular overhead arches, and occasional openings for (removed) skylights, metal brackets for service pipes. Mostly 2-window rooms without locks and single high vents to corridors. One-window rooms with matching cupboards adjoin the central block, which has a further external doorway and brick partition walls. The shower room retains 2-light metal-framed windows (set high) and the collapsed remains of a dummy brick wall where clay from the escape tunnel was covertly stored. The entry to the tunnel is known to have led from the second westernmost cubicle on the S side of the hut. The E end of the hut has an unusual 3-window room and a blocked doorway with an entrance porch and lobby on the N side with locking cupboard opposite. This arrangement may represent the privileged accommodation allowed for the highest ranking officers.

The tunnel, which was planned with the utmost attention to detail, survives under the concrete floor of the second room on the S side. It was originally served by makeshift electric lighting and a ventilation pipe, with a fan (made from food tins); timber shores were devised from camp furniture. Earth was carried away in haversacks or pockets and dumped during exercise or moulded into balls and concealed behind the false wall in the shower room. A striking 'pin-up' of a woman was painted on the wall above the concealed tunnel entrance to distract the attention of the guards.