This year’s EU Maritime Day was duly celebrated with a number of events in various sea-related localities around Malta. For Vittoriosa, this year’s edition will remain memorable: on that day the Maritime Museum Clock Tower, originally the Naval Bakery Clock Tower, with the scaffolding and shrouding that had enveloped it for months completely dismantled, again looked spruced up in its pristine glory after undergoing thorough and professional restoration by Heritage Malta.

The restoration was not straightforward because it presented new challenges to the restorers: the stonework had suffered severe damage caused by the rusting of the iron cladding that the builders had embedded in the original structure.

The clock tower abutting the Maritime Museum is back in its full glory dominating the Vittoriosa Marina: the clock, powered with a clock machine, gleams with its two new black and gilded hour numbers. Faithful replicas of the clock bells hang on the belfry and punctually chime the time while the original bells are preserved in the Maritime Museum.

Heritage Malta, congratulations for a job well done. It would be a good idea if the studies that preceded the restoration project and the restoration fieldwork as it progressed are documented and exhibited permanently to the public, ideally close to the original clock bells in the museum, as a lasting tribute to the excellent contribution of all concerned: experts, consultants, workmen.