Fort St Angelo

Thursday 11 May turned into a ‘shopping for boat bits’ day. Barry drove us over to Sliema where most of the chandleries are and we all set about getting a few bits and pieces for our yachts. We also left a gas bottle to be refilled and bought a new AGM engine start battery. This clearly ‘arduous’ business was broken up with a nice lunch at the Royal Malta Yacht Club (thank you Barry for hosting us there); all in all, it was both a useful and a pleasant way to spend the day.

Fort St Angelo   

Come 12 May, we were back in tourist mode. Having seen how the Knights of St John had set themselves up in Valletta, we thought that we ought to see what they had first used as base. When the Knights of St John arrived in Malta in 1530 they decided to settle in Birgu in the mediaeval Castrum Maris (castle by the sea). They felt that the existing capital city, Mdina, was too far inland and they also recognised the importance of the harbour and the need to defend it. They immediately set about protecting Birgu with bastions and strengthening the Castrum Maris.

Twenty years later the corsair (pirate) Dragut was proving to be a major threat to the Christian nations of the central Mediterranean; Dragut and the Knights were continually at loggerheads. In 1551 Dragut and the Ottoman admiral Sinan decided to take Malta and invaded the island with a force of about 10,000 men. After only a few days, however, Dragut broke off the siege and moved to the neighbouring island of Gozo, where he bombarded the Cittadella for several days. The Knights' governor on Gozo, Gelatian de Sessa decided that resistance was futile and threw open the doors to the Cittadella. The corsairs sacked the town and took virtually the entire population of Gozo (approximately 5,000 people) into captivity. Dragut and Sinan then sailed south to Tripoli, where they captured the Knights’ garrison there.

Looking across Grand Harbour from Valletta. Fort St Angelo is on the left and Fort St Michael is on the right (Senglea spur)   

Expecting another invasion within a year, Grand Master of the Knights, Juan de Homedes ordered the strengthening of the Castrum Maris, as well as the construction of two new forts, Fort St Michael on the Senglea promontory and Fort St Elmo at the seaward end of Mount Sciberras (now Valletta). It’s probably at this stage that the Castrum Maris became known as Fort St Angelo. The two new forts were built in the remarkably short period of six months in 1552. All three forts proved crucial during the Great Siege.

The Magisterial Palace   

Fort St Angelo was very badly damaged during the bombing raids of WWII and, despite it having been the HQ of the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet for many years after the war, it was not in great condition at the beginning of this century. However, it was completely renovated in time for the Heads of Commonwealth Meeting held in Malta in December 2015 so it all looks remarkably new. Having bought our tickets, we walked up the main entrance road and onto a plateau on the top of the hill. To the west of us was the Magisterial Palace, sadly closed to visitors because it is used by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. The palace was originally built onto the existing mediaeval house in the Castellan during the tenure of Grand Master Lisle Adam (1530-1534) and it served as both a palace and an administrative hub of the Order of St John and the Maltese Islands until 1558. Afterwards it housed the governors of the Fort and, from 1906 onwards, the Captains of HMS Egmont and HMS St Angelo, the Admiralty names for the fort.

View of Valletta from Fort St Angelo   

The plateau we were standing on looks out over the harbour with almost a 360-degree field of view. It was designed as a gun platform and was a crucial part of the multi-layered defences.

View from Ferramolino’s cavalier of the Bighi Naval Hospital overlooking Kalkara Creek   

The large halls within the castle and the Royal Naval officers’ accommodation and wardroom are now used for conferences and so there was little for us to see inside most of the buildings. There are, however, 3 vaulted halls (previously gunpowder and ammunition stores) built into the large defensive tower overlooking Birgu (Ferramolino’s cavalier) which have been set up with audio-visual displays. These are excellent and explain why Malta has been such a strategically significant island in the centre of the Mediterranean over the millennia; the defences and forts built to control the harbour; and how Fort St Angelo has become a focal point for Maltese pride in their history of resilience.

After watching these presentations, we emerged (blinking) into the bright sunlight and climbed up onto the top of the defences of Ferramolino’s cavalier for a grandstand view of the area. The Bighi Naval Hospital overlooking Kalkara Creek to our east has also been recently restored and we could see the tall lift tower built so that casualties could be carried up to the hospital from the ship moorings below.

Kalkara Creek (L) and Dockyard Creek (R)   

Looking between Kalkara Creek and Dockyard Creek we could see Barry and Catherine’s apartment block. Their balcony has fabulous views across Kalkara Creek looking out to the entrance of Grand Harbour, Fort St Elmo and Bighi Naval Hospital.

Dockyard Creek   

Aside from the audio-visual presentations, visiting Fort St Angelo is all about strolling around the defences and enjoying the commanding view. Looking down Dockyard Creek we could see the old Dockyard Bakery (built by the Admiralty in the mid-1800s) on the left hand side. It’s an impressive building with a large clock tower which now serves as the Malta Maritime Museum; as you would expect, that is on our list of places to visit.

View back towards Valletta from the southernmost defensive tower   

Moving on to the southernmost tower we had a good view back of the defensive walls and we could see how the different angles of the walls enabled guns to be fired over all of the approach paths.

The long walkway over the castle entrance gave us views towards Senglea over the top of some very large motor yachts. From this high vantage point we could clearly see their pools, jacuzzis and expansive [Ed: should that not read ‘expensive’?] deck space. We could also see their crews cleaning and polishing madly, trying to remove every last trace of the Saharan dust that had come in on the thunderstorms over the previous few days. Knowing that BV was similarly grimy [Ed: more-so, being moored alongside a building site], we headed back to her with a view to doing some cleaning ourselves.

Valletta, Malta