One World - Protecting the most significant buildings, monuments and features of Valletta (45)

The Barriera Stores were built during the reign of Grand Master Ramon Perellos (1697-1720) for the convenience of merchants engaged in trading business, who could also avail themselves of lodging quarters in spacious attics built over the same warehouses.

The Barriera Stores consist of a long two-storey façade at the Marina consisting of 15 identical bays creating a symmetrical rhythm. Each bay consists of a semi-circular arched doorway at ground floor with an open balcony with an iron railing supported on three simply decorated corbels. The balcony door is set within a semi-circular recess. Each bay is framed by means of pairs of attached pilasters from ground to roof level where they meet a cornice at roof level above which is a low parapet wall with pairs of ball finials (some missing), over the pilasters. The two bays following the pair at each corner are set aback from the alignment of the rest of the warehouses, creating an additional rhythm; somewhat interpreting the Baroque concave-convex sinuosity.

Mepa scheduled the Barriera Stores as a Grade 1 national monument as per Government Notice No. 276/08 in the Government Gazette dated March 28.