Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Birgu

  • Malta (South Eastern Region) – Birgu – Fort St. Angelo (Shifting Lobby)

    This is the room where the British stored gunpowder. Unsurprisingly, the British military didn’t want any little incidents involving gunpowder, so they kept it nice and safely in this room. Next to this room is a little lobby area where those men dealing with the gunpowder would have to change clothing as their uniform and boots might be “contaminated”. They would change into white clothing and canvas shoes, with absolutely no metal present, before they could play about with the gunpowder. The boxes in the storage room would be made of zinc and there was a glass and brass panel between this room and the shifting lobby.

    I have no idea what this means, since I’m not an expert in gunpowder (or indeed an expert in anything to do with the military if I’m being honest), but this is an original British sign painted onto the wall.

  • Malta (South Eastern Region) – Birgu – Fort St. Angelo (Sally Port)

    This is the oldest sally port (a secure entrance) in Malta, which formerly linked Ferramolino’s fortifications to St. Angelo’s Battery. It remained in place until the nineteenth century when improvements (well, changes) to the fort by the British took it out of use.

    The passageway.

    The partly unblocked end of the passage. The building which this leads to was used by the British military as a dormitory until it was recently turned into a museum, and it’s now interpretation room 1.

  • Malta (South Eastern Region) – Birgu – Order of St. John

    I’ve read a lot this week about the Knights of St. John, the Christian crusaders who successfully defended themselves against the Ottoman forces in their sixteenth century attack on Malta. So important was the victory that Queen Elizabeth I said that Christendom across Europe would have been endangered if the Ottoman Muslims had been victorious.

    The Knights governed Malta from 1530 until 1798 (they had lost their previous base in Rhodes – a city I now want to visit), when the French threw them out. The British reclaimed the islands in 1800, but they then came under British rule until the late twentieth century when Malta went for independence.

    Seeing lots of the history of the Knights this week, it did feel quite unfortunate that they were no longer involved in Malta. However, I discovered today on my visit to Fort. St Angelo that they’re back in the fort that they originally did so much to create. They were given a 99-year lease to the upper part of the fort, which is one of the most impressive defensive structures that I’ve seen (and more on which in other posts), in 1998.

    There is an agreement that the flag of Malta and the flag of the Knights will fly over the fort, which is just visible in my photo above. I like it when history does that, it feels right to me that the Knights are there. The only slightly unfortunate thing is that they’re now occupying some historic parts of the fort which visitors now can’t routinely visit.