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. Probably the battery was built in on the insistence of the military engineer Bourlamaque. During this period there was Grand Master Manoel Pinto de Fonseca and there was a revival in the building of new coastal fortifications. These were the coastal entrenchments. Bourlamaque also emphasised on the building of new coastal batteries and Mistra Battery seems to be one of them. Originally there were three embrasures in this battery. The battery was surrounded with a ditch. At the rear of the battery there are two blockhouses and on the landward side of the walls there are a number of musketry loopholes to cover the inland approaches. The blockhouses are linked with a redan. One can immediately recognise that the idea of this walkway is similar to that of the bastions. In the redan there the door where was there was a small drawbridge over the ditch. Over the door there is the coat-of-arms of Bailli de Montagnac and Grand Master Pinto, thus bringing one to the conclusion that this battery was built during his reign. In there was one 8-pdr as artillery in the battery. It was restored in after the fish farm was relocated. Initially, the Hospitaller defensive scheme was conceived as a sort of early-warning system intended to warn of approaching danger but this strategy was eventually augmented, by the end of the eighteenth century, with a wider network of defensive positions redesigned to serve as a series of physical obstacles against invasion. When the knights took possession of the Maltese islands in , they were unwilling to construct any but the most essential defensive works and, right up to the end of the cinquecento, the Order confined its attention primarily to the fortification of the harbour area. As far as the defence of the coastline was concerned, the Hospitallers continued to rely upon the same system of militia watch-posts that had long since been employed by the Maltese. Few military outposts were erected beyond the Harbour area until the turn of the seventeenth century when the knights embarked upon a spree of tower-building but it was the eighteenth century, however, which was to witness the heaviest and most widespread investment in coastal works of fortification. Most of the coastal fortifications, particularly the batteries and redoubts, were built in the manner of permanent stone fortifications, along formal lines with revetments of carefully cut stone although, many others, particularly the coastal entrenchments, were built more hurriedly in the manner of field defences. The first to materialize were the coastal batteries, or platforms, designed to mount guns intended to fire on approaching ships. Initially, it appears that these were simply prepared positions for artillery, undefended and open to the rear but most soon began to acquire defensible perimeters and blockhouses to shelter troops and munitions. Most of these structures followed the French pattern, albeit on a smaller scale, and basically consisted of semi-circular or polygonal gun-platform, sometimes ringed by embrasured parapets, and having one or two small blockhouses. For protection from landward attack, the batteries were given loopholed walls and redans. In most cases the blockhouses were placed in such a manner as to seal off the gorge and their walls were pierced with musketry loopholes. The engineers experimented with various combinations of blockhouses and redans depending on the tactical requirements of the site. Some batteries were also protected by rock-hewn ditches placed either on the landward or seaward sides, or both. The entrance to all batteries was from the landward side. A drawbridge was usually fitted to the gateway but it seems that not all batteries were actually fitted with one since, in , the Congregation of Fortification and War ordered that those still lacking a drawbridge were to be supplied instead with two wooden planks. Design-wise, hardly any two batteries are the same. They all differed in some detail from one another, either in size, shape of the artillery platform, number of embrasures on the parapet, or the layout of the barrack blocks and landward defences. This variety may reflect the personal preferences of the relatively large number of military engineers who were present on the island in the years — A variant of the coastal battery, was the coastal redoubt. In shape and form, there was little to distinguish a Hospitaller coastal redoubt from a coastal battery other than that the former usually lacked embrasures and gun platforms for cannon, for both were equipped with blockhouses and ditches. Unlike the batteries, however, the majority of redoubts erected by the knights in Malta and Gozo followed a more or less standard pentagonal plan. The redoubts were not generally designed to mount cannon since they were intended to serve as infantry strongpoints. The defensive roles played by redoubts varied considerably, making it difficult to give a precise definition and any particular configuration to this form of fortification. The pentagonal-plan redoubts were all fitted with a single blockhouse at the gorge and had low parapets and all-round shallow ditches. Eleven redoubts were built following this standard pattern. That known as the Perellos Redoubt, at Salina now demolished , was particular in that one corner of its perimeter wall was fitted with a small bastion. Ximenes Redoubt, on the opposite side of the bay, on the other hand, had two blockhouses but these were later unceremoniously replaced by a large magazine designed to house salt from the nearby Saline Nuove. Both Salina redoubts were unique in that they were later also fitted with internally-placed fougasses. These were designed along the lines of blockhouses or tour-reduits, a type of fortification much favoured by the French throughout their colonies in the Americas, where most were built in wood. A fourth tour-reduit was erected in at Marsalforn in Gozo, presumably by Mondion, but this too, has disappeared. Fort St Leonardo still exists, and is in reasonable repair, though a house has been built inside the ditch and the ditch in-filled to create an access. The seaward ditches are all in good repair. The fort is now used as a farm. The layout of the fort is complicated, with a smaller inner fort forming one corner within the larger part of the fort that contains the gun emplacements. A modern construction, possibly a reservoir, alongside the shoreward side of the fort detracts rather from its original appearance, and the approach to the main gate has been mined for rubble and is substantially damaged. By , the guns were removed and the fort became a searchlight position to illuminate any enemy vessels approaching the island, especially the Grand Harbour area. The largest British coastal defence in Pembroke is Fort Pembroke. It was built between and on the high ridge overlooking the northerly seaward approach to the Grand Harbour. The fort was shaped like an elongated hexagon surrounded by a ditch and glacis and contains underground magazines and casemated quarters for the garrison. Following the closure of the Pembroke military establishments in , the fort remained unused for some time but later it was allocated for use as the Verdala International School which still operates from this historic site. MEPA scheduled Fort Pembroke in as Grade 1 property of historic, architectural and contextual value as it forms part of a larger scheduled military complex. The fort was built between and by the British. The main gate carries a date of , but this is the date of completion of the gatehouse, not the commissioning of the fort. In the fort was stripped of the majority of its artillery. Soon after, the fort was abandoned for a considerable period, and in it was leased by the Malta Government to a local farmer, who used it to raise pigs for fifteen years. After protracted negotiations, ownership of Fort Delimara was transferred to Heritage Malta on August 11, Despite the pigs and a considerable amount of modern debris, the fort remains in decent condition, and still retains four of its original complement of fourteen Victorian Heritage Malta intends to restore the site to its former condition, and open it to the public as a museum and tourist site. Ventilation apertures and access passageways are spread out across the face of the cliff, and even out onto the seaward face of Point Delimara. The ditches are edged with revetting, with the upper scarp faced in earth and rubble. A stone parapet with rifle loops runs along the top of the north scarp. A square building above the gate may be a later addition from the early twentieth century, when the fort was used as a military base long after its surface fortifications were obsolete. The gatehouse faces toward the landward end of Delimara Point, reached by a tarmac road that runs outside the north ditch. The gatehouse is close to the seaward end of the north ditch. The glacis in front of the gatehouse has probably been reduced at some time to make road access easier, and the rolling bridge that would originally have crossed the ditch has been replaced by a permanent bridge. The road to Delimara Lighthouse along the east ditch of the fort disrupts the glacis on this face as well. The glacis is more intact along the south ditch, giving a better impression of how the fort would have looked when originally built. The casemates are grouped in pairs close to the cliff top, capped by an earth and rubble slope, and follow the natural curve of the cliff face, giving them a combined field of fire that covers the majority of Marsaxlokk harbour. Externally the fort is in fair condition. In some cases this erosion has reached the point that the revetting collapses into the ditch. The resulting rubble fall can be seen in the image of the east ditch. The ditch is also considerably overgrown, and polluted with general rubbish, unfortunately true of all the Victorian forts in Malta. There is currently no public access to the interior of the fort. The British built the fort between and , which stands above the shore east of the mouth of Grand Harbour, between Fort Ricassoli and Fort St. The fort was originally one of a pair, however the paired Cambridge Battery near Tigne, west of Grand Harbour, no longer exists. Today, only two of these guns survive, the one at Fort Rinella and the one at Napier of Magdala Battery. By arming both Gibraltar and Malta, the British were seeking to ensure the vital route to India through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, which had opened to traffic in The fort is modest in size as it was designed to operate and protect the single large gun, with its associated gun crew, magazines, bunkers, support machinery and the detachment of troops stationed within the fort to defend the installation. The gun was mounted en barbette on a wrought-iron sliding carriage and gun fired over the top of the parapet of the emplacement. This enabled the gun-crew to handle and fire the gun without exposing themselves to enemy fire. The fort was designed to engage enemy warships at ranges up to 7, yards. The low profile of the fort and the deeply buried machinery rooms and magazines were intended to enable it to survive counterfire from capital warships. The fort has no secondary armament; its fortifications — simply ditches, caponiers, a counter-scarp gallery and firing points — were intended mostly for small arms fire and grenades. The massive gun is far too heavy to be laid by hand, and the fort therefore contained a steam powered hydraulic system that traversed, elevated and depressed the gun, operated a pair of hydraulic powered loading and washing systems, and powered the shell lifts that moved the 2,pound shells and pound black- powder charges from the magazines into the loading chambers. The gun was intended to operate at a rate of fire of a single shell every six minutes. The firing cycle was for the gun to be traversed and depressed until it aligned with one of loading casemates, with the barrel pushing aside an iron plate that normally closed the aperture in the casemate. The gun was then flushed with water to cool it, clean any debris and deposit from the barrel, and douse any remaining embers from the previous cartridge. The ramming mechanism then inserted and tamped a silk cartridge containing the propellant charge, which was followed by one of the range of shells the gun was adapted to fire. The loaded gun was then traversed and elevated using the hydraulic system, and fired by an electrical firing mechanism. The gun then slewed to the other casemate to repeat the loading process, while the first casemate was recharged from the deeper magazine. The two separate loading casemates, each fed by an independent magazine, and the provision of man-powered backup pumps for the hydraulic system, such that a team of 40 men could maintain the hydraulic pressure to operate the gun, would have allowed the fort to continue firing even if substantially damaged. Originally the inner faces of the emplacement were revetted with masonry. The revetting was retained around the loading casemates, as one can see in the image above. The ton guns were in active service for only 20 years, with all being withdrawn from active service by , without ever firing a shot in anger. Because a single shell cost as much as the daily wage of soldiers, practice firing was limited to one shot every 3 months. The Navy gave up the site in The ton gun arrived in Malta from Woolwich on 10 September There it sat at the dockyards for some months before it was ferried to Rinella Bay. One hundred men from the Royal Artillery manhandled it to the fort in a process that took some three months. The gun was finally in position and ready for use in January Unfortunately, the steam engine and hydraulic machinery have not yet been replaced. Once a year, in May, a crew of volunteers fires the gun using only black powder to keep it active, and also to attract more visitors. Throughout the year, at This includes the firing, without shot, of a Victorian-era muzzle-loading fieldpiece. The Cambridge Battery is a fortification in Malta. It was built from to at the time of British rule. It was used to house the RML When the British took over Malta in it was considered that the Fortifications left by the Knights of St John and the presence of the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean was enough to defend the Maltese Islands. Equipped with four mm cannon and heavily armoured, they were 15 knots faster than the British ships of that era. The emerging development made it clear that the fortifications of Malta had to be reinforced. However because of outstanding works it could be used only in However, the weapons were judged to be quite reliable. The cannon was decommissioned in , although the last time it was fired was in or The Cambridge and the Rinella Batteries are identical. Both have the shape of a pentagon with a width of 71 m and a height of 66 m. The ramparts of the battery is about 6 m thick. The whole area was surrounded by a 5 m wide trench. The system consisted of two storeys. The upper floor was the only protected by a relatively low parapet firing position. On the lower floor there were two ammunition bunkers and the steam engine to drive the hydraulic directional drives of the guns. It is a Polygonal fort and was built by the British. The fort is a classic example of the type. The gatehouse, and the shoreward ditch are in fair repair, but there has been considerable collapse of the inner face of the north ditch. During this time the Camp mascot was a dog named Dodger. Later, Rusty, a dog and Scrubber a bitch were pets on the unit. Scrubber gave birth to 14 puppies, all of whom were found homes, elsewhere on Malta. It is a polygonal fort and was built by the British. Approximately m ft south is Fort Tas-Silg, a much larger polygonal style fortification. Construction started in and was completed in March The installation takes the form of a polygonal fort, irregular hexagonal in plan, with two caponniers defending the forward ditches. Access to the fort is via a gatehouse and causeway across the rear ditch. The original tower was demolished to clear the field of fire of the present battery. The battery is now in the care of Xghajra council and is being restored to form the focal point for a public space, Battery Park. The gallery below shows views on an anti-clockwise tour of the exterior of the fort. The rear section of the left hand ditch and the right half or the rear ditch are private property and inaccessible to photograph. The Victoria Lines are a line of fortifications flanked by defensive towers, which spans 12 kilometres along the width of Malta, dividing the north of the island from the more heavily populated south. The complex network of linear fortifications known collectively as the Victoria Lines that cut across the width of the island north of the old capital of Mdina was a unique monument of military architecture. When built by the British military in the late 19th century, the line was designed to present a physical barrier to invading forces landing in the north of Malta, intent on attacking the harbour installations, so vital for the maintenance of the British fleet, their source of power in the Mediterranean. Although never tested in battle, this system of defences, spanning some 12 km of land and combining different types of fortifications — forts, batteries, entrenchments, stop-walls, infantry lines, searchlight emplacements and howitzer positions — consitituted a unique ensemble of varied military elements all brought together to enforce the strategy adopted by the British for the defence of Malta in the latter half of the 19th century. A singular solution which exploited the defensive advantages of geography and technology as no other work of fortifications does in the Maltese islands. The Victoria Lines owe their origin to a combination of international events and the military realities of the time. The opening of the Suez Canal in , highlighted the importance of the Maltese islands. By , the coastal works had progressed considerably, but the question of landward defences remained unsettled. Although the girdle of forts proposed by Colonel Jervois in would have considerably enhanced the defence of the harbour area, other factors had cropped up that rendered the scheme particularly difficult to implement, particularly the creation of suburbs. Another proposal, put forward by Col. The chosen position was the ridge of commanding ground north of the old City of Mdina, cutting transversely across the width of the island at a distance varying from 4 to 7 miles from Valletta. There, it was believed that a few detached forts could cut off all the westerly portion of the island containing good bays and facilities for landing. At the same time, the proposed line of forts retained the resources of the greater part of the country and the water on the side of the defenders; whereas the ground required for the building of the fortifications could be had far more cheaply than that in the vicinity of Valletta. In a way the use of the Great Fault for defensive purposes was not an altogether original idea for it had already been put forward by the Hospitaller knights in the early decades of the 18th century when they realised that they did not have the necessary manpower to defend the whole island. Work on what was originally to be called the North-West Front began in with construction of a string of isolated forts and batteries designed to stiffen the escarpment. The first to be built was Fort Bingemma. By , work had still not commenced on the other two and the entrenched position at Dueira, all of which were to be completed on the vote of , Simmons also recommended that good communication roads were to be formed in the rear of the lines and those that already existed were to be improved. But due to the topography in the northern part of the island, there were areas of dead ground along the coast and inland approaches which could not be properly covered by the guns in the main forts. The main defects inherent in the defensive position were the extremities where the high ground descended towards the shore, leaving wide gaps through which enemy forces could by-pass the whole position. Particularly weak in this respect was the western extremity. It was also suggested that the existing farmhouses in the area be made defensible. A serious shortcoming of the North West Front defences was the lack of barrack accommodation for the troops which were required to man and defend the works. The lines extended six miles and the accommodation provided in the forts was rather scanty. Although initially designed as a series of detached strongpoints, the fortifications along the North West Front were eventually linked together by a continuous infantry line and the whole complex, by then nearing completion, was christened the Victoria Lines in order to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in The long stretches of infantry lines linking the various strongpoints, consisting in most places of a simple masonry parapet, were completed on 6 November The trace of the intervening stretches followed the configuration of the crest of the ridge along the contours of the escarpment. The average height of the parapet was about five feet, 1. Frequently, the walls were topped by loopholes of which only a very few sections have survived. In places, the rocky ground immediately behind the parapet was carved out to provide a walkway or patrol path along the length of the line. During the last phase of their development, the Victoria Lines were stiffened with a number of batteries and additional fortifications. Military training exercises staged in May revealed that the Victoria Lines were of dubious defensive value; by , with the exception of the coastal towers, they were abandoned altogether. Large parts of the fortification walls have collapsed, although some parts in the countryside remain intact. Today, this important example of late nineteenth-century British military architecture is currently used by the Armed Forces of Malta as a storage depot. Picture Information. Mouse over to Zoom - Click to enlarge. Have one to sell? Sell now - Have one to sell? Get the item you ordered or get your money back. Learn more - eBay Money Back Guarantee - opens in new window or tab. Seller information kenz Contact seller. Visit store. See other items More See all. Item Information Condition:. 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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. Probably the battery was built in on the insistence of the military engineer Bourlamaque. During this period there was Grand Master Manoel Pinto de Fonseca and there was a revival in the building of new coastal fortifications. These were the coastal entrenchments. Bourlamaque also emphasised on the building of new coastal batteries and Mistra Battery seems to be one of them. Originally there were three embrasures in this battery. The battery was surrounded with a ditch. At the rear of the battery there are two blockhouses and on the landward side of the walls there are a number of musketry loopholes to cover the inland approaches. The blockhouses are linked with a redan. One can immediately recognise that the idea of this walkway is similar to that of the bastions. In the redan there the door where was there was a small drawbridge over the ditch. Over the door there is the coat-of-arms of Bailli de Montagnac and Grand Master Pinto, thus bringing one to the conclusion that this battery was built during his reign. In there was one 8-pdr as artillery in the battery. It was restored in after the fish farm was relocated. Initially, the Hospitaller defensive scheme was conceived as a sort of early-warning system intended to warn of approaching danger but this strategy was eventually augmented, by the end of the eighteenth century, with a wider network of defensive positions redesigned to serve as a series of physical obstacles against invasion. When the knights took possession of the Maltese islands in , they were unwilling to construct any but the most essential defensive works and, right up to the end of the cinquecento, the Order confined its attention primarily to the fortification of the harbour area. As far as the defence of the coastline was concerned, the Hospitallers continued to rely upon the same system of militia watch-posts that had long since been employed by the Maltese. Few military outposts were erected beyond the Harbour area until the turn of the seventeenth century when the knights embarked upon a spree of tower-building but it was the eighteenth century, however, which was to witness the heaviest and most widespread investment in coastal works of fortification. Most of the coastal fortifications, particularly the batteries and redoubts, were built in the manner of permanent stone fortifications, along formal lines with revetments of carefully cut stone although, many others, particularly the coastal entrenchments, were built more hurriedly in the manner of field defences. The first to materialize were the coastal batteries, or platforms, designed to mount guns intended to fire on approaching ships. Initially, it appears that these were simply prepared positions for artillery, undefended and open to the rear but most soon began to acquire defensible perimeters and blockhouses to shelter troops and munitions. Most of these structures followed the French pattern, albeit on a smaller scale, and basically consisted of semi-circular or polygonal gun-platform, sometimes ringed by embrasured parapets, and having one or two small blockhouses. For protection from landward attack, the batteries were given loopholed walls and redans. In most cases the blockhouses were placed in such a manner as to seal off the gorge and their walls were pierced with musketry loopholes. The engineers experimented with various combinations of blockhouses and redans depending on the tactical requirements of the site. Some batteries were also protected by rock-hewn ditches placed either on the landward or seaward sides, or both. The entrance to all batteries was from the landward side. A drawbridge was usually fitted to the gateway but it seems that not all batteries were actually fitted with one since, in , the Congregation of Fortification and War ordered that those still lacking a drawbridge were to be supplied instead with two wooden planks. Design-wise, hardly any two batteries are the same. They all differed in some detail from one another, either in size, shape of the artillery platform, number of embrasures on the parapet, or the layout of the barrack blocks and landward defences. This variety may reflect the personal preferences of the relatively large number of military engineers who were present on the island in the years — A variant of the coastal battery, was the coastal redoubt. In shape and form, there was little to distinguish a Hospitaller coastal redoubt from a coastal battery other than that the former usually lacked embrasures and gun platforms for cannon, for both were equipped with blockhouses and ditches. Unlike the batteries, however, the majority of redoubts erected by the knights in Malta and Gozo followed a more or less standard pentagonal plan. The redoubts were not generally designed to mount cannon since they were intended to serve as infantry strongpoints. The defensive roles played by redoubts varied considerably, making it difficult to give a precise definition and any particular configuration to this form of fortification. The pentagonal-plan redoubts were all fitted with a single blockhouse at the gorge and had low parapets and all-round shallow ditches. Eleven redoubts were built following this standard pattern. That known as the Perellos Redoubt, at Salina now demolished , was particular in that one corner of its perimeter wall was fitted with a small bastion. Ximenes Redoubt, on the opposite side of the bay, on the other hand, had two blockhouses but these were later unceremoniously replaced by a large magazine designed to house salt from the nearby Saline Nuove. Both Salina redoubts were unique in that they were later also fitted with internally-placed fougasses. These were designed along the lines of blockhouses or tour-reduits, a type of fortification much favoured by the French throughout their colonies in the Americas, where most were built in wood. A fourth tour-reduit was erected in at Marsalforn in Gozo, presumably by Mondion, but this too, has disappeared. Fort St Leonardo still exists, and is in reasonable repair, though a house has been built inside the ditch and the ditch in-filled to create an access. The seaward ditches are all in good repair. The fort is now used as a farm. The layout of the fort is complicated, with a smaller inner fort forming one corner within the larger part of the fort that contains the gun emplacements. A modern construction, possibly a reservoir, alongside the shoreward side of the fort detracts rather from its original appearance, and the approach to the main gate has been mined for rubble and is substantially damaged. By , the guns were removed and the fort became a searchlight position to illuminate any enemy vessels approaching the island, especially the Grand Harbour area. The largest British coastal defence in Pembroke is Fort Pembroke. It was built between and on the high ridge overlooking the northerly seaward approach to the Grand Harbour. The fort was shaped like an elongated hexagon surrounded by a ditch and glacis and contains underground magazines and casemated quarters for the garrison. Following the closure of the Pembroke military establishments in , the fort remained unused for some time but later it was allocated for use as the Verdala International School which still operates from this historic site. MEPA scheduled Fort Pembroke in as Grade 1 property of historic, architectural and contextual value as it forms part of a larger scheduled military complex. The fort was built between and by the British. The main gate carries a date of , but this is the date of completion of the gatehouse, not the commissioning of the fort. In the fort was stripped of the majority of its artillery. Soon after, the fort was abandoned for a considerable period, and in it was leased by the Malta Government to a local farmer, who used it to raise pigs for fifteen years. After protracted negotiations, ownership of Fort Delimara was transferred to Heritage Malta on August 11, Despite the pigs and a considerable amount of modern debris, the fort remains in decent condition, and still retains four of its original complement of fourteen Victorian Heritage Malta intends to restore the site to its former condition, and open it to the public as a museum and tourist site. Ventilation apertures and access passageways are spread out across the face of the cliff, and even out onto the seaward face of Point Delimara. The ditches are edged with revetting, with the upper scarp faced in earth and rubble. A stone parapet with rifle loops runs along the top of the north scarp. A square building above the gate may be a later addition from the early twentieth century, when the fort was used as a military base long after its surface fortifications were obsolete. The gatehouse faces toward the landward end of Delimara Point, reached by a tarmac road that runs outside the north ditch. The gatehouse is close to the seaward end of the north ditch. The glacis in front of the gatehouse has probably been reduced at some time to make road access easier, and the rolling bridge that would originally have crossed the ditch has been replaced by a permanent bridge. The road to Delimara Lighthouse along the east ditch of the fort disrupts the glacis on this face as well. The glacis is more intact along the south ditch, giving a better impression of how the fort would have looked when originally built. The casemates are grouped in pairs close to the cliff top, capped by an earth and rubble slope, and follow the natural curve of the cliff face, giving them a combined field of fire that covers the majority of Marsaxlokk harbour. Externally the fort is in fair condition. In some cases this erosion has reached the point that the revetting collapses into the ditch. The resulting rubble fall can be seen in the image of the east ditch. The ditch is also considerably overgrown, and polluted with general rubbish, unfortunately true of all the Victorian forts in Malta. There is currently no public access to the interior of the fort. The British built the fort between and , which stands above the shore east of the mouth of Grand Harbour, between Fort Ricassoli and Fort St. The fort was originally one of a pair, however the paired Cambridge Battery near Tigne, west of Grand Harbour, no longer exists. Today, only two of these guns survive, the one at Fort Rinella and the one at Napier of Magdala Battery. By arming both Gibraltar and Malta, the British were seeking to ensure the vital route to India through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, which had opened to traffic in The fort is modest in size as it was designed to operate and protect the single large gun, with its associated gun crew, magazines, bunkers, support machinery and the detachment of troops stationed within the fort to defend the installation. The gun was mounted en barbette on a wrought-iron sliding carriage and gun fired over the top of the parapet of the emplacement. This enabled the gun-crew to handle and fire the gun without exposing themselves to enemy fire. The fort was designed to engage enemy warships at ranges up to 7, yards. The low profile of the fort and the deeply buried machinery rooms and magazines were intended to enable it to survive counterfire from capital warships. The fort has no secondary armament; its fortifications — simply ditches, caponiers, a counter-scarp gallery and firing points — were intended mostly for small arms fire and grenades. The massive gun is far too heavy to be laid by hand, and the fort therefore contained a steam powered hydraulic system that traversed, elevated and depressed the gun, operated a pair of hydraulic powered loading and washing systems, and powered the shell lifts that moved the 2,pound shells and pound black-powder charges from the magazines into the loading chambers. The gun was intended to operate at a rate of fire of a single shell every six minutes. The firing cycle was for the gun to be traversed and depressed until it aligned with one of loading casemates, with the barrel pushing aside an iron plate that normally closed the aperture in the casemate. The gun was then flushed with water to cool it, clean any debris and deposit from the barrel, and douse any remaining embers from the previous cartridge. The ramming mechanism then inserted and tamped a silk cartridge containing the propellant charge, which was followed by one of the range of shells the gun was adapted to fire. The loaded gun was then traversed and elevated using the hydraulic system, and fired by an electrical firing mechanism. The gun then slewed to the other casemate to repeat the loading process, while the first casemate was recharged from the deeper magazine. The two separate loading casemates, each fed by an independent magazine, and the provision of man-powered backup pumps for the hydraulic system, such that a team of 40 men could maintain the hydraulic pressure to operate the gun, would have allowed the fort to continue firing even if substantially damaged. Originally the inner faces of the emplacement were revetted with masonry. The revetting was retained around the loading casemates, as one can see in the image above. The ton guns were in active service for only 20 years, with all being withdrawn from active service by , without ever firing a shot in anger. Because a single shell cost as much as the daily wage of soldiers, practice firing was limited to one shot every 3 months. The Navy gave up the site in The ton gun arrived in Malta from Woolwich on 10 September There it sat at the dockyards for some months before it was ferried to Rinella Bay. One hundred men from the Royal Artillery manhandled it to the fort in a process that took some three months. The gun was finally in position and ready for use in January Unfortunately, the steam engine and hydraulic machinery have not yet been replaced. Once a year, in May, a crew of volunteers fires the gun using only black powder to keep it active, and also to attract more visitors. Throughout the year, at This includes the firing, without shot, of a Victorian-era muzzle-loading fieldpiece. The Cambridge Battery is a fortification in Malta. It was built from to at the time of British rule. It was used to house the RML When the British took over Malta in it was considered that the Fortifications left by the Knights of St John and the presence of the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean was enough to defend the Maltese Islands. Equipped with four mm cannon and heavily armoured, they were 15 knots faster than the British ships of that era. The emerging development made it clear that the fortifications of Malta had to be reinforced. However because of outstanding works it could be used only in However, the weapons were judged to be quite reliable. The cannon was decommissioned in , although the last time it was fired was in or The Cambridge and the Rinella Batteries are identical. Both have the shape of a pentagon with a width of 71 m and a height of 66 m. The ramparts of the battery is about 6 m thick. The whole area was surrounded by a 5 m wide trench. The system consisted of two storeys. The upper floor was the only protected by a relatively low parapet firing position. On the lower floor there were two ammunition bunkers and the steam engine to drive the hydraulic directional drives of the guns. It is a Polygonal fort and was built by the British. The fort is a classic example of the type. The gatehouse, and the shoreward ditch are in fair repair, but there has been considerable collapse of the inner face of the north ditch. During this time the Camp mascot was a dog named Dodger. Later, Rusty, a dog and Scrubber a bitch were pets on the unit. Scrubber gave birth to 14 puppies, all of whom were found homes, elsewhere on Malta. It is a polygonal fort and was built by the British. Approximately m ft south is Fort Tas-Silg, a much larger polygonal style fortification. Construction started in and was completed in March The installation takes the form of a polygonal fort, irregular hexagonal in plan, with two caponniers defending the forward ditches. Access to the fort is via a gatehouse and causeway across the rear ditch. The original tower was demolished to clear the field of fire of the present battery. The battery is now in the care of Xghajra council and is being restored to form the focal point for a public space, Battery Park. The gallery below shows views on an anti-clockwise tour of the exterior of the fort. The rear section of the left hand ditch and the right half or the rear ditch are private property and inaccessible to photograph. The Victoria Lines are a line of fortifications flanked by defensive towers, which spans 12 kilometres along the width of Malta, dividing the north of the island from the more heavily populated south. The complex network of linear fortifications known collectively as the Victoria Lines that cut across the width of the island north of the old capital of Mdina was a unique monument of military architecture. When built by the British military in the late 19th century, the line was designed to present a physical barrier to invading forces landing in the north of Malta, intent on attacking the harbour installations, so vital for the maintenance of the British fleet, their source of power in the Mediterranean. Although never tested in battle, this system of defences, spanning some 12 km of land and combining different types of fortifications — forts, batteries, entrenchments, stop-walls, infantry lines, searchlight emplacements and howitzer positions — consitituted a unique ensemble of varied military elements all brought together to enforce the strategy adopted by the British for the defence of Malta in the latter half of the 19th century. A singular solution which exploited the defensive advantages of geography and technology as no other work of fortifications does in the Maltese islands. The Victoria Lines owe their origin to a combination of international events and the military realities of the time. The opening of the Suez Canal in , highlighted the importance of the Maltese islands. By , the coastal works had progressed considerably, but the question of landward defences remained unsettled. Although the girdle of forts proposed by Colonel Jervois in would have considerably enhanced the defence of the harbour area, other factors had cropped up that rendered the scheme particularly difficult to implement, particularly the creation of suburbs. Another proposal, put forward by Col. The chosen position was the ridge of commanding ground north of the old City of Mdina, cutting transversely across the width of the island at a distance varying from 4 to 7 miles from Valletta. There, it was believed that a few detached forts could cut off all the westerly portion of the island containing good bays and facilities for landing. At the same time, the proposed line of forts retained the resources of the greater part of the country and the water on the side of the defenders; whereas the ground required for the building of the fortifications could be had far more cheaply than that in the vicinity of Valletta. In a way the use of the Great Fault for defensive purposes was not an altogether original idea for it had already been put forward by the Hospitaller knights in the early decades of the 18th century when they realised that they did not have the necessary manpower to defend the whole island. Work on what was originally to be called the North-West Front began in with construction of a string of isolated forts and batteries designed to stiffen the escarpment. The first to be built was Fort Bingemma. By , work had still not commenced on the other two and the entrenched position at Dueira, all of which were to be completed on the vote of , Simmons also recommended that good communication roads were to be formed in the rear of the lines and those that already existed were to be improved. But due to the topography in the northern part of the island, there were areas of dead ground along the coast and inland approaches which could not be properly covered by the guns in the main forts. The main defects inherent in the defensive position were the extremities where the high ground descended towards the shore, leaving wide gaps through which enemy forces could by-pass the whole position. Particularly weak in this respect was the western extremity. It was also suggested that the existing farmhouses in the area be made defensible. A serious shortcoming of the North West Front defences was the lack of barrack accommodation for the troops which were required to man and defend the works. The lines extended six miles and the accommodation provided in the forts was rather scanty. Although initially designed as a series of detached strongpoints, the fortifications along the North West Front were eventually linked together by a continuous infantry line and the whole complex, by then nearing completion, was christened the Victoria Lines in order to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in The long stretches of infantry lines linking the various strongpoints, consisting in most places of a simple masonry parapet, were completed on 6 November The trace of the intervening stretches followed the configuration of the crest of the ridge along the contours of the escarpment. The average height of the parapet was about five feet, 1. Frequently, the walls were topped by loopholes of which only a very few sections have survived. In places, the rocky ground immediately behind the parapet was carved out to provide a walkway or patrol path along the length of the line. During the last phase of their development, the Victoria Lines were stiffened with a number of batteries and additional fortifications. Military training exercises staged in May revealed that the Victoria Lines were of dubious defensive value; by , with the exception of the coastal towers, they were abandoned altogether. Large parts of the fortification walls have collapsed, although some parts in the countryside remain intact. Today, this important example of late nineteenth-century British military architecture is currently used by the Armed Forces of Malta as a storage depot. Furthermore, a military architecture entity of such calibre, effectively a strategic nodal point in the extensive system of fortification known as the Victoria Lines, deserves to be integrated more productively into the broader cultural and tourism sectors for the greater common good. This was a defensive position adopted by the British military and intended to divide Malta into two parts, concentrating the fortified assets along the line of a natural fault cutting across the width of the island — for more information go to our article. Simmons visit, however, seems to have put the wheels in motion for the construction of the structure was commenced some time after. Owing to the fact that no initial, or even period, record plans of the fort have survived, it is difficult for historians of British military architecture in Malta to determine the configuration of the original design, particularly where it involved the annexed battery. The present structure provides various hints of an incremental development. The addition of two disappearing gun emplacements in the s, for example, would have witnessed the replacement of earlier barbette emplacements as is known, and documented, to have happened at Fort Bingemma. If any such remains had existed at all and this is debatable the British military certainly showed no concern for the antiquity of the site, and simply requisitioned the whole area for defence purposes. Seven other guns proposed to be installed on disappearing carriages were, however, never mounted. Presumably these were to be mounted within the outer battery. Like most other British forts from the period, it is not known who actually designed the structure. The Commanding Royal Engineers at the time was Col. Murrey, but more likely than not the whole design and construction process involved the whole engineering staff and cannot be attributed to any one individual. Further research, however, is necessary before any conclusions can be drawn on this matter. All the galleries were protected, externally, by a shallow drop pit revetted in concrete. Entrance into the keep was through a main gateway situated in the middle of the south face and this led directly into a spacious central courtyard. A secondary gateway, more of a sally-port really, lead down into the ditch of the keep and was designed to provide communication between the keep and the adjoining battery. This may, in fact be a later addition, given that the masonry facade with its four adjoining loopholes, are fitted within a projecting concrete slab that buttresses the whole west side of the keep. The secondary gate was served by what appears to have been a chain-and-tackle type of drawbridge. This heavy buttressing, as a matter of fact, is present throughout various parts of the forts and reveals that very early in its service, the original structure erected in had to be stiffened to counter the instability created by the largely clayish terrain on which the fort was built. A walk through the ditch quickly reveals that, in some areas of the fort, the foundations were laid upon a thick concrete raft resting on a layer of clay. According to Hyde, the fort was built over a very yielding layer of Blue Clay whilst the solid lower Coralline Limestone was so very near that it formed part of the adjoining ditches. Indeed the fort bears many marks of structural instability as can be attested by the large number of buttresses reinforcing the revetment of both the keep and the outer battery. Despite these alterations, Generals Nicholson and Goodenough, in , remarked that Fort Mosta was not a satisfactory defensive work for the important strategic position that it occupied:. It would not be worthwhile to incur the expense of reconstructing it. Two gun emplacements for 6-inch BL guns on hydro-pneumatic disappearing carriages, on the other hand, were constructed on the outer ward of the fort accompanied by their underground magazines, stores, and guncrew shelters. Like most of the first-generation British forts of the s, Fort Mosta was constructed from a hybrid combination of masonry, hewn rock, earth, and cast-in-place mass concrete elements. The casemated gun emplacements, vaults, gateway, and various underground magazines, on the other hand, were constructed in masonry and covered over with a thick layer of protective earth. The concrete walls do not display any expansion joints although, in various places, and at somewhat irregular intervals, these are perforated with small rectangular holes, particularly at the horizontal interface of the concrete wall and the underlying masonry or bedrock. A significant proportion of this aggregate is quite elongated and the proportion of the aggregate appears rather low. Such a covering helped hold the earthen fill in place, and prevented it from being carried down into the ditch below by torrential downpours. With the abandonment of the Victoria Lines as an inland defensive position during the early years of the 20th century, Fort Mosta lost most of its military value, unlike the other two forts on the Victoria Lines, which were retained in use in a coastal defence role. By , the fort was being used simply as a munitions depot, a role which it has continued to fulfil up to the present day. For Campbell denotes one of the final stages of the long process of fortification. It is the last of the British forts to be built in Malta prior to the commencement of the Second World War. At this point in time, static defences had to contend with another major weapon that was then being brought to bear against them — the airplane, or better still, the aerial bomber — a weapon that would ultimately deliver the coup de grace to the whole notion of fixed and permanent defences. The forts and fortifications built in the nineteenth century, and before, were constructed to resist and repel a naval invasion and bombardment. Although called forts, most of the British works were actually little more than coastal batteries with their main armaments pointing out to sea, arranged in a manner so as to prevent enemy warships form approaching and entering the Grand Harbour. By the Second World War, the sea was still the major preoccupation facing the military authorities but now fixed defences also had to counter the threat posed by aircraft. The main scope for the building of Fort Campbell was to protect the approaches for Mellieha and St. That is because there were no defences to protect these two approaches and so, a decision was taken to build a new fort on Il-Blata, at the end of the Selmun promontory. Governor Bonham-Carter, while on tour around the Island, visited the site where Fort Campbell was to be built. Although the building of Fort Campbell is reported to have begun in it seems that till 1 December no work had been started on this site. The new fort was designed to mount two 6-inch guns. So protection against air attack had become a vital consideration. One of the machine-gun bunkers in the perimeter wall of Fort Campbell facing St. The main characteristic of the British fortifications of the late 19th century was the thick ramparts and ditches. But by this time these characteristics were abandoned in favour of thin walls. Therefore, Fort Campbell was built with a thin wall to resemble the field walls of the surrounding countryside, while the plan was broken up by an irregular trace designed to imitate the pattern of the adjoining terraced fields. Perimeter defence was provided by a number of machine-gun posts placed at irregular intervals and in other places there were few rifle loopholes. Its most important structure was the Battery Observation Post BOP , which was situated roughly in the middle of the area and faced north. Seven loopholes in a corner of the internal wall. Fort Campbell had also Defence Electric Lights Searchlights , which were situated a considerable distance away from the fort and situated along the shoreline to the north. There were three emplacements for searchlights, two of which were sited at the edge of the cliff overlooking the small island of St. The middle 6-inch gun emplacement facing St. References: 1 J. Manduca ed. Osprey - Fortress » Форум ArmourBook

Below are the available bulk discount rates for each individual item when you purchase a certain amount. Call for higher quantities. Standard turnaround for Customized Books 10 business days from proof approval. Standard turnaround for Bulk Books business days. Rush service available. Product availability changes daily. Please confirm your quantity is available prior to placing an order. Customization options may be limited or unavailable based on product design, binding or cover artwork. Please wait Holiday Update - Our cut-off dates for Christmas delivery vary by product. Please confirm prior to placing your order. Additional Information Home About. Home History The Fortifications of Malta Add to Wishlist. Publisher Identifier:. Such has been its strategic importance throughout the years that it has become one of the most fortified places in the world. Following the successful defence of the island during the Great Siege of , the Knights Hospitaller built new walls and fortifications. These defences failed when Napoleon occupied Malta in , and the island was retaken by the British in From this point onwards, Malta's defences were modernised throughout the 19th century and the island's final test came during World War II. This book examines all these different styles of fortification from the 16th to the 20th century. Biographical Note. He has written widely on British attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction in the 19th century, including an article in the Osprey Military Journal. He has had a lifelong passion for illustration, and since has worked as a professional artist. Steve has provided award-winning illustrations for renowned publishers Dorling Kindersley, where his interest in historical illustration began. You may also be interested in the following product s. More info. Military History. Subscribe to our newsletter.

Fascinating Maltese forts | Mercury Holidays

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. Probably the battery was built in on the insistence of the military engineer Bourlamaque. During this period there was Grand Master Manoel Pinto de Fonseca and there was a revival in the building of new coastal fortifications. These were the coastal entrenchments. Bourlamaque also emphasised on the building of new coastal batteries and Mistra Battery seems to be one of them. Originally there were three embrasures in this battery. The battery was surrounded with a ditch. At the rear of the battery there are two blockhouses and on the landward side of the walls there are a number of musketry loopholes to cover the inland approaches. The blockhouses are linked with a redan. One can immediately recognise that the idea of this walkway is similar to that of the bastions. In the redan there the door where was there was a small drawbridge over the ditch. Over the door there is the coat-of-arms of Bailli de Montagnac and Grand Master Pinto, thus bringing one to the conclusion that this battery was built during his reign. In there was one 8-pdr as artillery in the battery. It was restored in after the fish farm was relocated. Initially, the Hospitaller defensive scheme was conceived as a sort of early-warning system intended to warn of approaching danger but this strategy was eventually augmented, by the end of the eighteenth century, with a wider network of defensive positions redesigned to serve as a series of physical obstacles against invasion. When the knights took possession of the Maltese islands in , they were unwilling to construct any but the most essential defensive works and, right up to the end of the cinquecento, the Order confined its attention primarily to the fortification of the harbour area. As far as the defence of the coastline was concerned, the Hospitallers continued to rely upon the same system of militia watch-posts that had long since been employed by the Maltese. Few military outposts were erected beyond the Harbour area until the turn of the seventeenth century when the knights embarked upon a spree of tower-building but it was the eighteenth century, however, which was to witness the heaviest and most widespread investment in coastal works of fortification. Most of the coastal fortifications, particularly the batteries and redoubts, were built in the manner of permanent stone fortifications, along formal lines with revetments of carefully cut stone although, many others, particularly the coastal entrenchments, were built more hurriedly in the manner of field defences. The first to materialize were the coastal batteries, or platforms, designed to mount guns intended to fire on approaching ships. Initially, it appears that these were simply prepared positions for artillery, undefended and open to the rear but most soon began to acquire defensible perimeters and blockhouses to shelter troops and munitions. Most of these structures followed the French pattern, albeit on a smaller scale, and basically consisted of semi-circular or polygonal gun-platform, sometimes ringed by embrasured parapets, and having one or two small blockhouses. For protection from landward attack, the batteries were given loopholed walls and redans. In most cases the blockhouses were placed in such a manner as to seal off the gorge and their walls were pierced with musketry loopholes. The engineers experimented with various combinations of blockhouses and redans depending on the tactical requirements of the site. Some batteries were also protected by rock-hewn ditches placed either on the landward or seaward sides, or both. The entrance to all batteries was from the landward side. A drawbridge was usually fitted to the gateway but it seems that not all batteries were actually fitted with one since, in , the Congregation of Fortification and War ordered that those still lacking a drawbridge were to be supplied instead with two wooden planks. Design- wise, hardly any two batteries are the same. They all differed in some detail from one another, either in size, shape of the artillery platform, number of embrasures on the parapet, or the layout of the barrack blocks and landward defences. This variety may reflect the personal preferences of the relatively large number of military engineers who were present on the island in the years — A variant of the coastal battery, was the coastal redoubt. In shape and form, there was little to distinguish a Hospitaller coastal redoubt from a coastal battery other than that the former usually lacked embrasures and gun platforms for cannon, for both were equipped with blockhouses and ditches. Unlike the batteries, however, the majority of redoubts erected by the knights in Malta and Gozo followed a more or less standard pentagonal plan. The redoubts were not generally designed to mount cannon since they were intended to serve as infantry strongpoints. The defensive roles played by redoubts varied considerably, making it difficult to give a precise definition and any particular configuration to this form of fortification. The pentagonal-plan redoubts were all fitted with a single blockhouse at the gorge and had low parapets and all-round shallow ditches. Eleven redoubts were built following this standard pattern. That known as the Perellos Redoubt, at Salina now demolished , was particular in that one corner of its perimeter wall was fitted with a small bastion. Ximenes Redoubt, on the opposite side of the bay, on the other hand, had two blockhouses but these were later unceremoniously replaced by a large magazine designed to house salt from the nearby Saline Nuove. Both Salina redoubts were unique in that they were later also fitted with internally-placed fougasses. These were designed along the lines of blockhouses or tour-reduits, a type of fortification much favoured by the French throughout their colonies in the Americas, where most were built in wood. A fourth tour-reduit was erected in at Marsalforn in Gozo, presumably by Mondion, but this too, has disappeared. Fort St Leonardo still exists, and is in reasonable repair, though a house has been built inside the ditch and the ditch in-filled to create an access. The seaward ditches are all in good repair. The fort is now used as a farm. The layout of the fort is complicated, with a smaller inner fort forming one corner within the larger part of the fort that contains the gun emplacements. A modern construction, possibly a reservoir, alongside the shoreward side of the fort detracts rather from its original appearance, and the approach to the main gate has been mined for rubble and is substantially damaged. By , the guns were removed and the fort became a searchlight position to illuminate any enemy vessels approaching the island, especially the Grand Harbour area. The largest British coastal defence in Pembroke is Fort Pembroke. It was built between and on the high ridge overlooking the northerly seaward approach to the Grand Harbour. The fort was shaped like an elongated hexagon surrounded by a ditch and glacis and contains underground magazines and casemated quarters for the garrison. Following the closure of the Pembroke military establishments in , the fort remained unused for some time but later it was allocated for use as the Verdala International School which still operates from this historic site. MEPA scheduled Fort Pembroke in as Grade 1 property of historic, architectural and contextual value as it forms part of a larger scheduled military complex. The fort was built between and by the British. The main gate carries a date of , but this is the date of completion of the gatehouse, not the commissioning of the fort. In the fort was stripped of the majority of its artillery. Soon after, the fort was abandoned for a considerable period, and in it was leased by the Malta Government to a local farmer, who used it to raise pigs for fifteen years. After protracted negotiations, ownership of Fort Delimara was transferred to Heritage Malta on August 11, Despite the pigs and a considerable amount of modern debris, the fort remains in decent condition, and still retains four of its original complement of fourteen Victorian Heritage Malta intends to restore the site to its former condition, and open it to the public as a museum and tourist site. Ventilation apertures and access passageways are spread out across the face of the cliff, and even out onto the seaward face of Point Delimara. The ditches are edged with revetting, with the upper scarp faced in earth and rubble. A stone parapet with rifle loops runs along the top of the north scarp. A square building above the gate may be a later addition from the early twentieth century, when the fort was used as a military base long after its surface fortifications were obsolete. The gatehouse faces toward the landward end of Delimara Point, reached by a tarmac road that runs outside the north ditch. The gatehouse is close to the seaward end of the north ditch. The glacis in front of the gatehouse has probably been reduced at some time to make road access easier, and the rolling bridge that would originally have crossed the ditch has been replaced by a permanent bridge. The road to Delimara Lighthouse along the east ditch of the fort disrupts the glacis on this face as well. The glacis is more intact along the south ditch, giving a better impression of how the fort would have looked when originally built. The casemates are grouped in pairs close to the cliff top, capped by an earth and rubble slope, and follow the natural curve of the cliff face, giving them a combined field of fire that covers the majority of Marsaxlokk harbour. Externally the fort is in fair condition. In some cases this erosion has reached the point that the revetting collapses into the ditch. The resulting rubble fall can be seen in the image of the east ditch. The ditch is also considerably overgrown, and polluted with general rubbish, unfortunately true of all the Victorian forts in Malta. There is currently no public access to the interior of the fort. The British built the fort between and , which stands above the shore east of the mouth of Grand Harbour, between Fort Ricassoli and Fort St. The fort was originally one of a pair, however the paired Cambridge Battery near Tigne, west of Grand Harbour, no longer exists. Today, only two of these guns survive, the one at Fort Rinella and the one at Napier of Magdala Battery. By arming both Gibraltar and Malta, the British were seeking to ensure the vital route to India through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, which had opened to traffic in The fort is modest in size as it was designed to operate and protect the single large gun, with its associated gun crew, magazines, bunkers, support machinery and the detachment of troops stationed within the fort to defend the installation. The gun was mounted en barbette on a wrought-iron sliding carriage and gun fired over the top of the parapet of the emplacement. This enabled the gun-crew to handle and fire the gun without exposing themselves to enemy fire. The fort was designed to engage enemy warships at ranges up to 7, yards. The low profile of the fort and the deeply buried machinery rooms and magazines were intended to enable it to survive counterfire from capital warships. The fort has no secondary armament; its fortifications — simply ditches, caponiers, a counter-scarp gallery and firing points — were intended mostly for small arms fire and grenades. The massive gun is far too heavy to be laid by hand, and the fort therefore contained a steam powered hydraulic system that traversed, elevated and depressed the gun, operated a pair of hydraulic powered loading and washing systems, and powered the shell lifts that moved the 2,pound shells and pound black-powder charges from the magazines into the loading chambers. The gun was intended to operate at a rate of fire of a single shell every six minutes. The firing cycle was for the gun to be traversed and depressed until it aligned with one of loading casemates, with the barrel pushing aside an iron plate that normally closed the aperture in the casemate. The gun was then flushed with water to cool it, clean any debris and deposit from the barrel, and douse any remaining embers from the previous cartridge. The ramming mechanism then inserted and tamped a silk cartridge containing the propellant charge, which was followed by one of the range of shells the gun was adapted to fire. The loaded gun was then traversed and elevated using the hydraulic system, and fired by an electrical firing mechanism. The gun then slewed to the other casemate to repeat the loading process, while the first casemate was recharged from the deeper magazine. The two separate loading casemates, each fed by an independent magazine, and the provision of man-powered backup pumps for the hydraulic system, such that a team of 40 men could maintain the hydraulic pressure to operate the gun, would have allowed the fort to continue firing even if substantially damaged. Originally the inner faces of the emplacement were revetted with masonry. The revetting was retained around the loading casemates, as one can see in the image above. The ton guns were in active service for only 20 years, with all being withdrawn from active service by , without ever firing a shot in anger. Because a single shell cost as much as the daily wage of soldiers, practice firing was limited to one shot every 3 months. The Navy gave up the site in The ton gun arrived in Malta from Woolwich on 10 September There it sat at the dockyards for some months before it was ferried to Rinella Bay. One hundred men from the Royal Artillery manhandled it to the fort in a process that took some three months. The gun was finally in position and ready for use in January Unfortunately, the steam engine and hydraulic machinery have not yet been replaced. Once a year, in May, a crew of volunteers fires the gun using only black powder to keep it active, and also to attract more visitors. Throughout the year, at This includes the firing, without shot, of a Victorian-era muzzle-loading fieldpiece. The Cambridge Battery is a fortification in Malta. It was built from to at the time of British rule. It was used to house the RML When the British took over Malta in it was considered that the Fortifications left by the Knights of St John and the presence of the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean was enough to defend the Maltese Islands. Equipped with four mm cannon and heavily armoured, they were 15 knots faster than the British ships of that era. The emerging development made it clear that the fortifications of Malta had to be reinforced. However because of outstanding works it could be used only in However, the weapons were judged to be quite reliable. The cannon was decommissioned in , although the last time it was fired was in or The Cambridge and the Rinella Batteries are identical. Both have the shape of a pentagon with a width of 71 m and a height of 66 m. The ramparts of the battery is about 6 m thick. The whole area was surrounded by a 5 m wide trench. The system consisted of two storeys. The upper floor was the only protected by a relatively low parapet firing position. On the lower floor there were two ammunition bunkers and the steam engine to drive the hydraulic directional drives of the guns. It is a Polygonal fort and was built by the British. The fort is a classic example of the type. The gatehouse, and the shoreward ditch are in fair repair, but there has been considerable collapse of the inner face of the north ditch. During this time the Camp mascot was a dog named Dodger. Later, Rusty, a dog and Scrubber a bitch were pets on the unit. Scrubber gave birth to 14 puppies, all of whom were found homes, elsewhere on Malta. It is a polygonal fort and was built by the British. Approximately m ft south is Fort Tas-Silg, a much larger polygonal style fortification. Construction started in and was completed in March The installation takes the form of a polygonal fort, irregular hexagonal in plan, with two caponniers defending the forward ditches. Access to the fort is via a gatehouse and causeway across the rear ditch. The original tower was demolished to clear the field of fire of the present battery. The battery is now in the care of Xghajra council and is being restored to form the focal point for a public space, Battery Park. The gallery below shows views on an anti-clockwise tour of the exterior of the fort. Manduca, p 6. Spiteri, p 7. Spiteri, p Researched and Written by: Charles Debono B. Hons History. Pillboxes were not the only type of fortifications built at Mellieha in the years before the outbreak of the Second World War. There were other minor military structures but the most important fortification to be built in Mellieha, and the last fort to be built in Malta by the British, was Fort Campbell. Go Back. All rights reserved. All copyrights and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited. Fortifications - Fort Campbell Selmun. More Info. More Info view all. Enter a destination or hotel. Select an airport. Enter a destination or tour name. Malta Travel Guides Fascinating Maltese forts. Fascinating Maltese forts Throughout history, Malta has had its fair share of invading forces wanting to make the islands their own. The Grand Harbour From the beautiful and serene public gardens in Valletta you get the perfect view of the Grand Harbour below. Fort St. Along the coastline All along the coastline of Malta you will find countless lookout posts and watch towers that were built by the Knights in the seventeenth century. British fortifications Once the British arrived in Malta in , they set about making use of the existing fortifications and they also built a number of their own. Popular hotels in Malta. Sun, 24th Jan. Bed and Breakfast. Fri, 15th Jan. Mon, 11th Jan. Half Board Plus. View all hotels in Malta.

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