Call for Fort St Angelo to be taken off the tourist map

An information board with badly faded colours informs visitors to Fort St Angelo in Vittoriosa that the fort is "the jewel in the crown of Malta's rich military heritage".

While few, if any, would dispute that statement, the jewel has long since lost the sparkle that once held visitors in thrall.

Today, the lower part of the fort is in a despicable state. Room interiors are burnt out, there is a hole in the ground where a swimming pool once lay, parts of this military landmark have fallen easy victim to vandals and to the elements, and rooms which once served as lodgings have had their tiles smashed and electrical fittings wrenched out of their sockets.

The gate was spirited away years ago, taking the fort's dignity away with it - access to the once impregnable fort is available to one and all, with many entering by car.

Last week fireworks were let off from within during the feast of St Lawrence.

The irony about the dilapidated state of the fort is that over the past years Malta has been promoted as a centre of cultural attraction. Which it is, with its crown in tatters.

In his book Fortresses of the Knights, Stephen C. Spiteri writes that although the origins of Fort St Angelo are popularly credited to the Arabs, who occupied Malta in the ninth century AD, the first documented evidence of its existence only appears in 13th century royal mandates during the Angevin domination.

For more than 200 years, the fort served its feudal masters adequately enough, but by 1530, when the Knights of St John arrived here, it was "an obsolete stronghold, easily mined and stormed from its landward approaches.

"Only because it was the sole available fortification within the harbour was it taken over by the Order... the Great Siege of 1565 found Fort St Angelo a partially developed stronghold. D'Aleccio's prints depict effectively the crude amalgamation of its two different styles of fortifications, the obsolete mediaeval and the contemporary bastioned trace," Mr Spiteri writes.

Colonel Don Carlos de Grunenberg, engineer to the King of Spain, was responsible for replacing the remaining mediaeval walls in the 1680s with a new bastion enceinte to provide powerful gun batteries trained towards the mouth of Grand Harbour.

When Napoleon Bonaparte arrived in Malta in 1798, Fort St Angelo "was one of the most powerful fortresses on the island, armed with some 80 guns and four mortars and garrisoned by a detachment from the Regiment of Malta".

Mario Farrugia, executive director of Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna, the voluntary non-government organisation promoting the preservation and conservation of the island's cultural and architectural heritage, called it a parody that Fort St Angelo was promoted in travel guides and tourist maps as a must for visitors.

"Just imagine a tourist who comes to Vittoriosa by bus, then has to go on a long walk to reach the fort, to find it in the total state of abandon in which it lies.

"The fort should be taken off such tourist promotional material because it is not fair to ask visitors to make the effort to see the fort and then present them with these ugly scenes," he said.

First of all, access to the fort should be controlled and no one should be allowed to enter by car because the cobbled paving dating back over a century is being dislodged, he said.

No maintenance has been carried out for the past 25 years. The platform dating to the turn of the 20th century naval saluting battery has collapsed and the belfry of the bell, which is said to have announced the Great Siege of 1565, is in imminent danger of falling apart, he added.

"Fort St Angelo should be managed in line with the extremely important place it holds in Malta's military history. FWA is prepared to take over the management of the fort with the backing of government departments.

"FWA will be able to organise walking tours of the fort after the historical site is spruced up."

The upper part of Fort St Angelo, which is in a proper state of preservation, is closed to visitors. In December 1998, the government signed an agreement with the Knights of Malta granting the Order the right of use to the land and buildings forming the upper part of the fort for 99 years.

The Order bound itself to restore these buildings and other constructions to the highest standards, using its own money.