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A corruption of the Italian word ‘macchina’ – mechanism – il-Maċina was a masting-crane mounted on the rampart known as Sheer Bastion from where its sheer-legs would to raise masts and lower them into galleys moored beneath.
The Maċina’s original wooden arms were eventually replaced by stronger iron ones, however the new sheers had a very short working life as the Armstrong Mitchell 160-ton hydraulic crane made the Maċina redundant in 1886. Period photos show the ‘dead’ structure pulled up against the bastion so as not to obstruct shipping in the creek. This made the sheers higher and even more of a harbour landmark.
The Maċina area was then put to different uses. A semaphore signalling station set up on the roof, linked the Dockyard with Castille and the Palace Tower. The buildings from the Main Gate to Sheer Bastion were largely taken over by the Dockyard Police/Admiralty Constabulary; in the cells, dormitories, yard, search rooms and guard house, naval dockyard law was enforced, while injured workers were treated in a surgery by the water’s edge. There were offices for the King’s Harbour Master and pilots, for applications for marriage allowances and pensions, for foremen, chargemen, submariners and boatswains.
By this time there no further use for the sheers and for some reason their dismantling was done by simply dropping the arms into the waters of the creek, presumably later pulled to shore and broken up in sections. This dramatic demolition was signalled by the ‘balomba’, the powerful Dockyard siren, on February 27, 1927, in a warning to keep clear. The back supports were removed, leaving just the ‘A’ frame; the pins were removed from the hinged ends; there was a high turnout to witness the once-in-a-lifetime event.
The event was reported by the Daily Malta Chronicle: “The huge crane, said to be a hundred years old, plunged into the sea with terrific force, breaking into two and raising at the impact, a wave fully 35 feet high, spraying both sides of the buildings thereon, hundreds of feet away. The crane remained embedded in the mud, a portion of the huge structure jutting out of the water by several feet.”
After the war the area around the Maċina went into decline, partly due to heavy bombing damage. The Admiralty erected temporary Nissen huts and nondescript buildings which were later cleared. As the British military base in Malta wound up, a road was cut through the Macina to create a Senglea/Vittoriosa ring road providing road access into Senglea Wharf. In February 1980, the Malta Labour Party moved its headquarters from Marsa to the Maċina. Two huge torches, party symbols, were erected on the sides of the bastion, and a Labour Party sign was placed above the new road arches. For the next 15 years, the Maċina became synonymous with the party.
After the Malta Labour Party moved to Ħamrun in 1995, the Maċina lay derelict for some years until 2009 when it became the focal point of the annual maritime festivals organised by Senglea Local Council. Small sheer-legs were erected on top of the bastion as a reminder of the original Maċina. The building has now been converted to a boutique hotel, Cugó Gran Maċina.
As the harbour ferry sails into Dockyard Creek, past Fort St Angelo, Cottonera Waterfront, Vittoriosa, Senglea and the Dockyard Main Gate guard house, now used as a residence, look out for the cast iron hinges on the masonry plinth of the Maċina, still there, dreaming of a glorious past.
Article taken from a longer version in Times of Malta authored by Michael Cassar, with contributions from Conrad Thake and Anton Quintano: https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180107/life-features/The-Ma-ina-from-mast-crane-to-boutique-hotel.667406
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