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THE FORTIFICATIONS OF MALTA 1530-1945 PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Charles Stephensen, Steve Noon | 64 pages | 01 Feb 2004 | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | 9781841766935 | English | United Kingdom The Fortifications of Malta – - Osprey Publishing The land-uses of the whole Fort St. Elmo complex and its environs in The World Monuments Fund placed the fort on its Watch List of the Most Endangered Sites in the world because of its significant deterioration due to factors such as lack of maintenance and security, natural aging, and exposure to the elements. Works at Fort St Elmo aimed at transforming the historical gem into an outstanding tourist attraction. What is commonly referred to as Fort St Elmo actually consists of the fort, Carafa Enceinte the outer parts of the fort and Lower St Elmo where parts of the film Midnight Express were filmed. While the fort was being restored, some archaeological excavations were made and various elements of the original pre fort were uncovered. This was an important find because very little remains of the original fort exist, mainly since most of it was rebuilt by Laparelli in and it underwent a lot of renovation between the 17th and 19th centuries. Fort St Michael is a fortification which is now destroyed except for the outer bastions which can still be seen to this day. The fortified city of Senglea which was later built around the fort is still known locally as l-Isla. Fort St Elmo fell, but Fort St Michael withstood the siege, though massively damaged, the scene of some of the most desperate fighting of the siege. It withstood 10 assaults from the Ottoman Turkish attackers. This was largely dismantled during extensions to the dockyard area at the end of the 19th century and construction of a new primary school in the s. The remainder was badly damaged by aerial bombing during the Siege of Malta during the Second World War. After the war the ruins were dismantled and the site made into a public garden. The fort was built by the Knights of Malta between and Together with Fort St. The Fort continued to be an active military installation throughout the British period and was commissioned as HMS Ricasoli between and , providing training for the Naval population.. Despite attempts at negotiation they eventually blew up the powder magazine. The mutiny was quashed by loyal troops, and 30 mutineers were condemned to death by court martial. Fort Ricasoli was active in the defence of Malta during the second world war. Structural alterations and additional gun emplacements on the seaward bastion bear witness to its continued use and evolution as a military installation. The fort has suffered significant damage from enemy action in the siege of Malta during World War II, when much of the internal structure was badly damaged. Today the fort faces a much bigger threat from the relentless onslaught of the sea. The fort is threatened by erosion from seaward, where a fault in the headland on which it stands is being eroded by the sea. During the tenure of the British military, the bastion was substantially repaired, with the outer surface being cut back and new stone facing applied. This too is now eroding badly and in a section metres long by 13 metres high was removed, restored and re-attached. Parts of the fort are still viewed as being in a dangerous condition. Rihana Battery was one of the original group of coastal fortifications erected by the knights of St John in the years The structure originally consisted of a pentagonal platform with a large rectangular blockhouse sealing off the gorge. Today the structure is missing its left face, which collapsed over time into the sea. The blockhouse has its own cistern cut out into the rock immediately underneath the floor of the building. There was one main entrance from the exterior and a corresponding opening leading out onto the battery platform. Each of the two side rooms had a door opening to the gun platform while the central room also had two windows, likewise opening onto the battery. This battery was erected in to protect the south Comino channel, and is one of three surviving coastal batteries. It was equipped with two pounder and four 6-pounder cannon. This type of coastal battery was built to resist the disembarkation of troops from an enemy fleet. It was fitted with a semi-circular enciente facing the entrance to the bay and contained eight embrasures as well as being enclosed by a wall that protected it from a landward attack. It also had a blockhouse to accommodate the garrison and to store ammunition and supplies. Restoration of the Battery commenced in The project was completed with the installation of an iron gate to the main entrance, the blocking of six of the eight embrasures with an iron grill and the mounting of a 6-pounder cannon which was transferred from its location about four hundred metres away by helicopter in a joint operation between the Armed Forces of Malta and the Royal Navy. The original pounder cannon were still on the island and have been mounted within the Battery. The stone in the embrasures and main entrance was badly deteriorated and the original pointing had suffered severe weathering. The roofs of the blockhouse need urgent repair and the entrance was about to collapse. Flagstones were laid in the three smaller rooms and the entire enciente was repointed. The battery on the promontory between Qbajjar and Xwejni is the last vestige of a chain of fortifications built early in the eighteenth century around Marsalforn bay to avoid landings of enemy craft in the area. The battery is constructed in a semi-circle with two blocks to house the garrison and a defensive wall between them with musketry loopholes to provide enfiladed fire. There is a ditch on the seaward side and access was from the landward side through a high stairway with a drawbridge. The fort was an active military establishment initially under the Knights and later under British Military control from its construction through until when the British military finally decommissioned the forts guns. During the Second World War, a battery of 3. The guns were mounted in concrete gun emplacements and deployed in a semicircle around the fort. The fort suffered considerable damage to its ramparts, barracks and chapel as a result of aerial bombing during the war. In , the fort underwent major restoration work to repair the ravages of time and damage sustained during the Second World War. It served as a location for the shooting of the climactic scene of the episode Baelor of the TV series Game of Thrones. This was one of the strongest fortifications. The first proposal for the fortification of the Qala location was put forward in and the work on the battery, named St Anthony Battery in honour of the then-reigning Grand Master, Antoine Manoel de Vilhena reigned , who had offered to build it out of his own expense, was began in and brought to completion in the following year, as recorded by the date and inscription which once stood above the small main gate into the fort. Many of the finishing touches, however, were still under way during and continued as late as April when the escutcheons on the main gate were finally carved out. In August , the master carpenter Antonio Mallia and the master blacksmith Saverio Dimech received payment for the manufacture and fitting of the doors and windows of the blockhouse while towards the end of that year Mastri Ferdinando Vella and Domenico Bigeni were paid for other unspecified works carried out at the battery. By this time, the battery was already in need of some repairs. The roof of the block house had to be repaired twice, in February and September respectively. The Ras il-Qala battery was one of the largest coastal batteries constructed locally in terms of its typology and dimensions. Its design is also unique in many ways. To begin with, its polygonal plan departed from the standard semi-circular configuration which was nearly universally applied to most coastal batteries of the time, particularly those erected by the knights during the course of the s. The platform has a demi-hexagonal plan with a large musketry wall and triangular redan closing off the gorge, complemented by a sizeable centrally-placed blockhouse occupying the rear of the platform. The design of the battery is attributed to the resident military engineer, the Frenchman Charles Francois de Mondion, which would make it one of his last works, given that he died in As resident military engineer, Mondion would have been responsible for all new works of fortification but the construction works would have been supervised by his assistant, the Italian second engineer Francesco Marandon, who would later go on to become the resident military engineer in his own right and see to the construction of the large fortress on Ras-e-tafal Fort Chambrai in Indeed, the ammunition for these guns had already been transported and deposited inside the battery by the end of when it was suddenly decided to arm the battery with guns of a smaller calibre. For most of its history, Qala Battery was to have an armament of eight guns. By , these included five 8-pounder iron cannon with rounds of roundshot and 58 rounds of grapeshot; and three 6-pounder guns with rounds of roundshot and 61 rounds of grapeshot. The importance of the battery can be gauged by the fact that it was one of the few coastal works to have held its own supply of gunpowder permanently on site; which in turn also meant that the outpost was manned round the clock, all year round.

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