Camp 79 was built as a standard-type prisoner-of-war camp: 36 huts inside a wired compound, with guard housing and offices at the front. It opened in 1942–43 to hold Italian prisoners working the surrounding farms, then converted to a German working camp from April 1945.
By December 1946 the camp — together with satellite hostels scattered across the Wolds at Bilsby, Tumby, Skegness and Tattershall — held close to 2,950 men. Behind the wire, camp life was its own small society: a printing press ran the camp newspaper, Die Lagerzeitung; an orchestra and a 300-seat theatre performed regularly; the library held some 3,000 books. Camp 79 closed in 1948.
Source: The National Archives, FO 939/159 · Prisoner of War Camps 1939–1948, R.J.C. Thomas, English Heritage (2003)