Castles and fortifications in Malta
Saluting Battery
The Saluting Battery is Valletta's ancient ceremonial platform from where gun salutes are still fired regularly. Equally, the passage of time is marked twice daily from her with gun fire at noon (12:00) and sunset (16:00). The battery itself is located at one of the capital's highest vantage points from where splendid vistas of the Grand Harbour and its surrounding towns can be enjoyed. Its origins go back to the time wh ...
Founded: 1566 |
Location:
Valletta, Malta
Fortifications of Mdina
Mdina, the former capital of Malta, has been fortified since antiquity, but the majority of the present fortifications were built by the Order of Saint John between the 16th and 18th centuries. The city walls have survived completely intact except for some outworks, and are among the best preserved fortifications in Malta. Mdina has been on Malta"s tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1998. In around ...
Founded: 700 BC-1746 |
Location:
Mdina, Malta
Cittadella
The Cittadella is a small fortified city and citadel which lies in the heart of Victoria on the island of Gozo, Malta. The area has been inhabited since the Bronze Age, and in the Medieval era it was known as the Gran Castello. The Cittadella has been on Malta"s tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1998. Archaeological remains show that the area presently occupied by the Cittadella was first inhabited ...
Founded: c. 1500 |
Location:
Gozo, Malta
Fort St. Elmo
Fort Saint Elmo is a star fort commanding the entrances to both harbours along with Fort Tigné and Fort Ricasoli. It is best known for its role in the Great Siege of Malta of 1565. By 1417, the local militia had already established a permanent watch post on the tip of the Sciberras Peninsula. In 1488, the Aragonese built a watchtower on Saint Elmo Point, and it was dedicated to Erasmus of Formia, better known as Saint El ...
Founded: 1552–1570 |
Location:
Valletta, Malta
Fort St. Angelo
Fort Saint Angelo is a large bastioned fort in Birgu, located at the centre of the Grand Harbour. The fort was originally a castle, and its date of construction is not known. It definitely existed by the 13th century, and in the Middle Ages it was known as the Castrum Maris. It was rebuilt by the Order of Saint John as Fort Saint Angelo in the 16th and 17th centuries, and it played an important role in the Great Siege of ...
Founded: 13th century |
Location:
Valletta, Malta
Fort Rinella
Fort Rinella is one of a series of four coastal batteries built by the British in Malta and in Gibraltar between the years 1878 and 1886. The purpose for building these forts was for each of them to house an Armstrong 100-ton gun. The building of these forts was necessitated by Britain’s fear of losing her naval superiority in the Mediterranean to Italy, who was at the time rebuilding her navy to an unprecedented streng ...
Founded: 1878-1886 |
Location:
Kalkara, Malta
Saint Mary's Tower
Saint Mary"s Tower is a large bastioned watchtower on the island of Comino. Saint Mary"s Tower was built in 1618 to defend Comino since ships travelling between Malta and Gozo were often attacked by Barbary corsairs based on the cliffs and creeks of Comino. It also served as a communications link between the island of Gozo and mainland Malta in case of an attack on Gozo. The tower is a large, square building wi ...
Founded: 1618 |
Location:
Comino, Malta
Wignacourt Tower
Wignacourt Tower is a bastioned watchtower in St. Paul's Bay, Malta. It was the first of six Wignacourt towers to be built, and it was completed in 1610. An artillery battery was added a century later in 1715. Today the tower is a museum. By the end of the 16th century, Malta's harbour area was extensively fortified. However, the rest of the islands was virtually undefended, and the coastline was open to attacks by Ottom ...
Founded: 1610 |
Location:
Saint Paul's Bay, Malta
Fort Manoel
Fort Manoel is a star fort on Manoel Island built in the 18th century by the Order of Saint John. Fort Manoel has been on Malta's tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1998, as part of the Knights' Fortifications around the Harbours of Malta. In the 16th century, the Marsamxett Harbour was one of the two major harbours in the Maltese city of Valletta. In the centre of the harbour was an island, originally k ...
Founded: 1723–1733 |
Location:
Gżira, Malta
Fort San Lucian
Fort San Lucian is a large bastioned watchtower and polygonal fort in Marsaxlokk, Malta. The original tower was built by the Order of Saint John between 1610 and 1611, being the second of six Wignacourt towers. An artillery battery was added in around 1715, and the complex was upgraded into a fort in the 1790s. In the 1870s, the fort was rebuilt by the British in the polygonal style. Saint Lucian Tower is the second larg ...
Founded: 1610 |
Location:
Marsaxlokk, Malta
Saint Thomas Tower
Saint Thomas Tower is a large bastioned watchtower in Marsaskala. It was built above the shore on the seaward face of the headland of il-Hamriga in Marsaskala. It is a substantial fortification intended to prevent the landing of troops in the sheltered anchorages of Marsaskala Creek and St Thomas Bay. Construction of the tower was approved in July 1614, weeks after the raid of Żejtun, in which an Ottoman fleet manage ...
Founded: 1614 |
Location:
Marsaskala, Malta
Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings
Photo from Flickr, copyright alancowper
Historic Site of the week
Easter Aquhorthies Stone Circle
Easter Aquhorthies stone circle, located near Inverurie, is one of the best-preserved examples of a recumbent stone circle, and one of the few that still have their full complement of stones. It consists of a ring of nine stones, eight of which are grey granite and one red jasper. Two more grey granite stones flank a recumbent of red granite flecked with crystals and lines of quartz. The circle is particularly notable for its builders' use of polychromy in the stones, with the reddish ones situated on the SSW side and the grey ones opposite.
The placename Aquhorthies derives from a Scottish Gaelic word meaning 'field of prayer', and may indicate a 'long continuity of sanctity' between the Stone or Bronze Age circle builders and their much later Gaelic successors millennia later. The circle's surroundings were landscaped in the late 19th century, and it sits within a small fenced and walled enclosure. A stone dyke, known as a roundel, was built around the circle some time between 1847 and 1866–7.