Students in ‘hands-on’ Siġġiewi heritage conservation project

Thirty G.F. Abela Junior College students who participated in a Euromed Heritage IV project this year had the opportunity to learn ‘hands-on’ about the care of their historic environment, and the challenges that come with it. Two students, Maria Camilleri and David Scicluna, share their experience.

Destroyed, forgotten and unknown. The ruined old parish church of Siġġiewi is an unlikely place to find 30 lively Sixth form students, yet this is exactly what you would have found there every Saturday from February to April this year.

The sixth formers were participating in the ‘Educational Linkage Approach in Cultural Heritage’ (Elaich) project, as part of their Systems of Knowledge course.

Elaich is a project within the framework of the Euromed Heritage IV programme and is co-funded by the EU. This is an international project, with partners including the University’s Department of the Built Heritage, as well as institutions in Israel, Italy, Greece and Belgium. It aims to raise youth awareness on the importance of cultural heritage and conservation.

Participating students had the chance to meet students and specialists from other partner countries. We also had the opportunity to get to know more about Malta’s rich built heritage, while catching a glimpse of what its conservation entails.

In the process, we learnt about the different professions and career opportunities in this sector, which will help us take better informed decisions after completing our studies at sixth form.

Students committed themselves enthusiastically to the project, which gave us access to an unusual mix of on-site and classroom-based teaching by different conservation specialists, as well as direct hands-on experience of conservation work on the site itself. Interactive lectures were held at Junior College, while on-site activities took place at the old parish church, which is located down the road from Siġġiewi’s main square.

Conservation is more complex than it may seem, involving a multi-disciplinary team of specialists who have to work closely together for a project to be successful. It all starts with a visual examination of the site to identify the problems and their effects. Photos of the site are taken and each part is analysed.

The study of building techniques and materials reveals the successive historical periods during which the church developed.

Written documents may shed more light on what happened to a historic building. At the beginning of the 15th century, there was only a small church dedicated to St Nicholas on this site.

The church went through successive enlargements because of an increasing population. From early on, the church is reputed to have had structural problems, which may have contributed to it being demolished and abandoned at the end of the 17th century, when the present-day parish church of Siġġiewi was built.

The site lay abandoned and largely forgotten until 2006, by which time it had reached a disastrous state, partially buried under soil and debris, and used for agricultural purposes.

An extensive conservation project was undertaken in 2006 by the Restoration Directorate in the Ministry of Resources and Rural Affairs. The site was first emptied of accumulated soil and dirt, while vegetation and biological growth was removed. During this process, a lot of care was taken to ensure the site was not damaged further.

Structural integrity of one altar was kept by replacing a supporting column, while the decorative cherubs surmounting the altar piece were secured with carefully inserted and hidden supporting cables.

A fresco located at the site was taken indoors and replaced with a photograph on-site. Mortar was applied between the remains of the stones to prevent the ingress of rain water.

The project raised participating students’ awareness of the importance of conserving the cultural heritage through all of these exciting yet informative activities.

The lectures broadened our minds about the values of our cultural surroundings, which in this project was represented by built heritage.

This project was very informative and helped us understand what cultural heritage is and how to maintain it. A key lesson was that one can never stop maintaining a building, as deterioration will always continue.

Ongoing maintenance is therefore essential on any historic building. One of the goals of the project was to heighten awareness of this need, to help ensure the proper resourcing and maintenance of such monuments.