Wartime graffiti

An article in Saturday's Times Newspaper highlights the remarkable collection of images of wartime graffiti held in the RCAHMS archive. The graffiti comprises both drawings and paintings and ranges from pencil scribbles to elaborate murals stretching round the walls of entire rooms. It also features poems, limericks, sayings and mathematical calculations.

Examples include portraits of three members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force on the wall of a church in Castletown (used in the war as an officer's mess); a large number of portraits of women and poems at Dalbeattie Royal Naval Armaments Depot; a large scale mural of a dance scene painted by Polish soldiers at Grant's Shoe Factory in Arbroath; and a mural at Donibristle airfield in Fife depicting the workers in the officer's mess and airfield as Egyptians.

The recording of wartime art and graffiti became an established part of the 'Defence of Britain' survey programme several years ago after David Easton, the investigator on the survey, discovered a Mason's mark in the concrete used to convert a 19th century Orkney farmhouse into a pillbox. This recognition that so many wartime buildings hold secret social and personal histories has added a new dimension to an already fascinating body of survey work.

For more images and information go to our searchable online database canmore.