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Architectural gems inherited from the British dot the Sliema landscape. Even though nowadays large blocks of apartments have taken over the Sliema seafront, one can still can find a wealth of remnants of Malta’s British past.
The first vestige of British architecture in Malta is thought to be the colonnaded portico to Valletta’s Main Guard, surmounted by the royal crest, a grand statement added in 1814, some years after they first arrived in Malta. As their interest in Malta as a growing naval base grew along with increasing colonial trade and sea traffic increased, Malta became an important part of the British Empire.
Notable British buildings include the construction of St Vincent de Paule Hospital, Luqa, during the 1880s the Mtarfa Hospital complex and the remarkable Naval Bakery in Birgu, that catered for the British Mediterranean fleet. Neo-Classical porticoes were very popular at the time, and copied in such beautiful buildings as the Dragonara Palace in St Julians, Palazzo Pescatore in St Paul’s Bay and other buildings from the era.
Undoubtedly, the most important location for the British was Sliema. Signifying ‘peace’, in Maltese, Sliema started as a quiet fisherman’s village. During the second half of the 19th Century, the area became popular as a summer resort for the wealthy wishing to escape the summer heat of Valletta, constructing the first villas and summer houses. Later the British barracks at Tigne Point and family accommodation around Sliema saw it grow and flourish into a town.
Capua Palace on Triq Borg Olivier, formerly Victoria Avenue, is an old, Neo-Classical buildings that typifies much of 19th-century British colonial architecture. It was actually built by a Russian banker who named it Selma Hall, and only later became the residence of the Prince Charles of Capua and his Irish wife, noblewoman Penelope Smythe, when they were exiled from Naples by the Prince’s brother King Ferdinand II of the two Sicilies. The palace is characterised by the Ionic colonnades that surround the building on all four sides to enjoy the then open sea and country views.
To this day beautiful Neo-Classical and Neo-Baroque houses from this era, notably the twin villas on High Street, still embellish the area. Smaller, quaint houses line the side streets while typical bay window Victorian houses used to enhance the seafront.
The fusion of the Neo-Classical style with the Maltese vernacular eventually bred a beautiful limestone architecture that was to become a unique Maltese colonial style seen notably in the buildings in St Andrew’s where the British built a military complex, but also in Sliema and its immediate neighbours Gzira and St Julians.
Two fine examples of Maltese colonial architecture are the majestic Zammit Clapp Hospital built by Andrea Vassallo in the limits of Sliema, and its neighbour the Convent of the Sacred Heart. A stone’s throw away, in St Julians, stands the impressively Balluta Buildings, a majestic edifice designed by Giuseppe Psaila in 1928 to provide grand summer apartments for the well-to-do. This building’s eclectic style defies definition as it is a mix of Art Deco and Maltese Baroque with Art Nouveau wrought iron, possibly the largest building in Malta at the time.
Even more unusual is the row of late-nineteenth-century Moorish houses in Rudolph Street, Sliema built by one of Malta’s leading architects, Emmanuele Galizia (1830-1906), who built Malta’s Gothic Addolorata Cemetery, the dramatic Turkish Cemetery and many other public buildings. These remarkable homes face a row of Art Deco houses and Trinity Church, styled as an English pitched-roof village church, truly an amazing concentration of styles within just 50 metres. Dingli Street boasts the rarest of all, a 1939 house by Gustavo Vincenti influenced by William Morris’ Arts and Crafts movement.
Other notable examples in this booming seaside town can be discovered on walks through its streets. The sadly dilapidated Villa Drago with its large garden near Bisazza Street is the last of an enclave of beautiful grand houses; the column-porticoed homes in Annunciation Square, a quaint reminder of Sliema village life that leads to yet another dilapidated beauty in Triq Castelletti, a magnificent Victorian-era Neo-Classical building with a beautiful staircase and an enchanting colonnaded terrace.
Churches also flourished during this period, two important examples being the Neo-Gothic Carmelite Church in Balluta Bay and Stella Maris Church.
All in all, Sliema basked during the passage of the British in more ways than one. The preservation of these iconic historical buildings ensures future generations will be able to appreciate this niche of very English architectural heritage in Malta.
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