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Edwin P. Borg
A good number of typical Maltese houses disappeared in recent years to make way for modern projects or to serve different purposes other than those for which they were built. Those that survived, however, are finally beginning to be appreciated and are now being referred to as ‘Maltese Houses of Character’.
Most of these houses are now also being restored or refurbished in a way that the changes suit the original plan. I therefore would like to highlight some of the most common features which gave these houses their true identity as a house of character. So let me go back to my childhood days and the first thing that comes to memory is the general view from outside, the house façade.
THE FAÇADE (IL-FAĊĊATA)
Maltese townhouse facades vary widely, we will only cover the most common characteristics which one would encounter in houses of the Maltese upper-middle-classes, such as those built for a lawyer, notary, priest or a business man.
On each side of the double main door there would be a knocker (ħabbata) or a rounded knob (pum). These knockers were generally made of brass, iron, or when in the form of a knob, these would be earthenware (ċaqquf). The knockers of large houses were often very fancy.
On the right hand side of the door one would find the keyhole(serratura) complete with its key-plate (skudett). This key-plate was made of either brass or iron painted black. From the inside one would see the door lock which was made by hand by local blacksmiths and therefore it was quite large compared to today’s modern locks. A glance at one of the keys used at the time would be enough to understand the size of the locks. These types of keys (muftieħ) nowadays are being used as a decoration on shelving or a side table, or as a paperweight on desks.
When shut at night, the main doors had two door bolts (firrolli) on each side. Those on top would be pushed further up and the bolts would pass through an iron ring fixed on to the door posts (caccisa) while the lower bolts would be pushed down into a hole especially drilled into the floor. For added security, a strong wood or iron bar (stanga) was then placed across the inside of the door and slotted into iron brackets or rings (ħoloq) especially prepared on the door and on the side walls.
The house number was usually fixed on the outside of the door frame (koxxa tal-bieb) or right in the middle of the door lintel (blata tal-bieb). On the right hand side a chain leading to the doorbell was hung. When pulled from the outside this chain would rock the bell fixed on the inside, making it ring; his type of manual door bell has almost completely vanished.
MAIN DOOR FRAME (KOXXOX TAL-BIEB)
The stonework of main door frames differed considerably between one and the other in their architectural and intrinsic work. Some are rather plain, simple stone frames jutting out from the rest of the façade by approx. two and a half centimetres all around the door. Others are elaborately constructed and their architecture is delicate and the corbels (saljaturi) supporting the balcony rise out of the door frame. Other door jambs have side columns (kolonni) on plinths (zokklatura). One needs only go for a walk around the streets of Malta, to observe the wealth of these various types of artistic main doors.
BALCONIES (GALLARIJI)
Balconies are another of the artistic treasures which abound in Malta due to the richness and artistry of the numerous balconies found in Malta. The most common is a main central balcony built above the main door. This could be a stone open balcony with balustrades or other artistic stone shapes. These open stone balconies are the oldest type as later open balconies were built with iron railings. The door leading to these balconies is always found in a recessed alcove. Most of these central balconies are of a rectangular or a semicircular base and some of the best surviving examples are to be found in Gozo.
Many open stone balconies were converted to closed balconies, having a wooden box-frame added to them once wood became cheaper during the British period. These also have a deep alcove around the door leading to the balcony. The upper arched part of the door leading to an open balcony lived on, and was never enclosed, but left as a fanlight window (rewwieħa) above the roof of the closed balcony. This could be opened for fresh air, or it could be used also to repair the roof of the balcony. Most of these closed wooden balconies were rectangular although curved shapes also exist on finer houses. The upper part of each balcony panel is made of framed glass panes that open upwards on top hinges and are held in an open slanting position on two hooks (ganġetti), one on each side of the pane. A row of smaller panes runs above the large ones, but these don’t open. The lower part of a ‘box-balcony’ is always made of fixed wooden panels.
On top of the wooden balcony roof, a layer of approximately seven centimetres thickness of sand and cement mixture was applied. On this balcony roof, a small water spout (mizieb) was formed from this cement mixture to enable the rain water to escape onto the street below. Later on, a corrugated metal sheet (pjanca immewġa) was also fixed on top of all, for double protection from rain water. The timber used for balconies was red deal painted in a colour matching the main door and the other windows on the façade. The most popular colour for apertures was the Royal Navy issue dark green due to its easy availability through the Navy stores.
NICHES
Quite a number of houses had a niche on the façade or if it were a corner house this niche would be found decorating the corner. These niches were always constructed approx. one storey high or sometimes even higher above street level. These niches would hold a stone statue of a saint or of Our Lady.
FACADE APERTURES
The house façade usually had two windows on each side of the main door and similar windows on each side of the central first-floor balcony. Instead of windows, one would sometimes find a smaller door on each side of the front door. These side windows or doors always had louvres (persjani) opening out towards the street. In fact facades used to have an adjustable hook to keep the louvres securely open and not slamming shut on a windy day. The window frame had three or four framed panes on each side and an inner wooden shutter attached to it on side hinges (sportelli). Both the louvres and the inside windows were secured by specially made bolts (spanjuletti) which are fast disappearing to make way for more modern fittings.
In front of the main door one could also find an iron gate (grada), approximately a metre and a half high. This was generally painted either white or black. The threshold (l-għatba) was most often made of local hard stone (ġebel tal-qawwi), however sometimes it was also made of cement, mosaic or marble. Houses which were higher than street level had two or three steps in front of the main door in addition to the threshold. Such houses usually had a basement (kantina) underneath the house.
THE GLAZED DOOR (ANTIPORTA)
Inside the main door one would find a door with a wooden frame and glass windows, called an ‘antiporta’. This door was always set in at a distance, enough to allow the main door to open towards the inside of the house; unlike any other window or side door which were always made to open onto the outside. The panes of the ‘antiporta’ were lined with a lace curtain to allow the light to pass through while providing privacy.
This glazed door (antiporta) was very popular, because at a time when transport and home entertainment was almost nonexistent, people would stay at home and in winter old people especially, used to spend most of their time behind these glass doors looking onto the street. In summer, they would sit for hours between the opened main door and the glazed door to enjoy the evening breeze and socialise with neighbours.
THE ENTRANCE-HALL (INTRATA)
On entering the main door one would pass through the antiporta to the entrance hall which usually had a door on either side leading side rooms. These rooms always had a window or glazed door overlooking the street. These side doors were skilfully designed, top part being always fitted with louvred shutters. That way, when the owners of the house only opened the louvres, the door would function as a window or they could open the whole structure and use it as a door leading directly onto the street.
THE SECOND HALL WAY (ANTE-INTRATA)
The first entrance hall usually led to a second one. These halls were generally separated by two columns on plinths. At its furthest end of the ‘ante-intrata’ a door opened onto the yard or garden. This door not only served to allow light to enter the house but it also embellished the hallway with greenery provided by the potted plants which were always found in such yards. The most popular plants were aspidistras, water lilies (galletti), begonias
and geraniums.
The second hallway (ante-intrata) led to the staircase to the first storey. Most of these houses were built on two storeys, the ground floor and the first floor. Quite a number of these houses of character were often ruined by being divided into various small dwellings to accommodate more people, or so that part of the house could be used as a business outlet. This usually happened when an inheritance was being divided however the ground floor rooms of Valletta houses were specifically destined as shops, as the rich owners would prefer to live higher above the dampness and smells rising from the streets, hence the term of ‘piano nobile’ for the first floor level.
THE YARD (IL-BITĦA)
The yard usually included a well which was the main source of household water until just before the Second World War. The top part of a well was always surrounded by a huge stone, known as the ‘herza’, made from one large stone with a hole in its middle for a pail to pass through it. This stone was placed on top of the well-mouth to prevent people falling into it. The outside of this stone took various forms: circular, rectangular or very often, in the form of a wide balustrade. When attached to a wall, this well-stone was usually found with an arched recess behind it. Inside its arched top, a wrought-iron artistically designed hook protruded from the wall so that the pail could easily be raised and lowered down the well to drawing water. When the well was detached from the wall, the stone around it usually had a square column on each side, on which a lintel (blata) was placed for a pulley to be suspended from an iron ring fixed to this lintel.
THE WELL (BIR) OR THE UNDERGROUND CISTERN (ĠIEBJA)
The well would extend underneath the yard and sometimes even under part of the house itself. These water reservoirs used to be dug out manually in the rock; wells were always bell-shaped with a mouth in the top narrow part. Water cisterns were usually bigger and although they were also manually dug out of the rock, their roof was constructed with stone slabs resting on arches and not on wooden beams. Moreover, the sides and bottom of both well and cistern used to be plastered with a mixture of cement and sand in order to make them impermeable (ibbattmati).
ROOFS, RAIN WATER AND GROUND-POTTERY (DEFFUN) ROOF SURFACES
The rainwater stored in these water reservoirs was the main source of drinking water at the time. The water catchment area originated from the roof of the house. These roofs were made of stone slabs resting on wooden beams, or in earlier built houses, on stone arches and then covered by about twenty centimetres of soft stone chippings mixed with fine material and lime (torba) and then on top of this, they used to lay a final surface to the roofs by using ground-pottery mixed with a little cement (deffun).
All this was manually laid and then pressed by beating with a wooden paddle, semicircle above and flat below, (marzebba). This roof-surface beating was always carried out by teams of women who sang as they worked and were known as the beaters, in Maltese ‘il-ballata’.
The flat roofs of old houses are usually set at slightly different levels, so that being surfaced at a slant (pendil), rainwater would pour off one roof onto a lower one, until it would pour into an earthenware drainpipe (katusa) that carried water into the well so that not a drop of precious rainwater would be lost. The bottom part of this pipe found in the yard below ended in a hollowed square stone with three holes. The first two, one on top and the other below it, extended the pipe straight into the well. The third hole was on one side so that when the well was full of water the bottom hole was capped and the water would run out from the side hole and into the yard, from where it would flow out into the street through the storm water pipe.
The roof also incorporated little stone ‘chimneys’ that were covers for ventilators incorporated in the walls of every room, including lower rooms. The stone capping of these ventilator shafts prevented rain pouring into the rooms beneath.
A STRUCTURE TO DRAIN OFF RAIN WATER (SIEQJA)
Wells found in gardens usually had a hole outside in the street underneath the garden wall which led into a waterpipe and ran straight to the well. In fact, it was very common during the rainy season, some years back, to find a folded potato-sack or two held in place with small stone slabs used as weights and placed next to these holes to catch the rain water from the street and direct it into the well.
THE STAIRCASE (IT-TARAĠ)
Various kinds of staircases exist, the oldest type being those which were constructed between two walls with a first flight running to a landing (pjan komuni) and where more steps rose in the opposite direction. As Maltese architecture became more refined under the Knights, the inner wall dividing the flights of steps usually had a decorative opening, like a window, sometimes even with balustrades. When the outer wall was common with the yard it had large windows overlooking the yard.
CANTILEVER STAIRS (TARAĠ TAR-RAĠĠ OR TARAĠ LA INGLIZA)
Geometrical stairs in Maltese are also known as an ‘English style staircase’ indicating that this type was introduced after 1800 when Malta passed under British rule. In this very attractive style of staircase each stone step (skaluna) overlaps each other a little and is embedded (ingulmati) in the side wall. Each of the steps are slightly wider on the side touching the wall and this enables it to wind up gracefully as it goes up at a right angle corner. On the outside of the staircase an artistic wrought iron railing (ħadid tat-taraġ) would be fitted to serve as a hand rail (poġġaman). Each of these steps was always hand chiselled (minġur) out of Maltese limestone. When ready, the staircase would be painted with linseed oil (zejt tal-kittien) to prevent it from absorbing dirt and for easy washing.
THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (GARIGOR)
Another common type of stairs was the ‘spiral staircase’ which served as a secondary flight at the back of the house. Houses with basements sometimes had such stairs starting from the basement and going straight up to the roof, with an exit on each floor.
THE STAIRS CARPET (TAPIT TAT-TARAĠ)
In the past it was very fashionable to lay a carpet down each flight of steps. This carpet only covered the middle of each step while the exposed sides of each step were always painted white. The carpet was held firmly in place by a brass rod running through brass rings (anelli tar-ram) fixed on each side of the carpet, on every riser.
THE BASEMENT (KANTINA)
The basement used to be roofed by stone slabs (xorok) resting on arches (ħnejjiet) and not on wooden beams (travu tal-injam). The reason for this was because the basement was always very humid even though an air passage always led from the basement into the street. This air passage, or ventilator, was covered by a stron iron grating (sprall). In houses with high-roofed basements going up to half a metre above street level, these ventilators took the form of a small window very low to the ground and secured by iron gratings. Such houses would have two or three steps leading up to their main door.
THE ROOM AT THE END OF THE STAIRS LEADING TO THE ROOF (TROMBA TAL-BEJT)
At times this was not even a room but the upper walls of the stairs leading up to the roof with a door at its end. In such cases the roof of this structure showed the same slant as that of the stairs beneath. The height legally allowed for such structures was not to exceed eight courses (filati).
ROOF PARAPET WALL (OPRAMORTA)
This parapet on the roof ran along the perimeter of the house. The outer part of it, which ran along the facade of the house, usually had a large stone block (il-ġebla tal-bandiera) in its middle so that a flagpole could be fixed to it. This large stone used to be sculptured on the outside to show either the date when the house was completed or the family emblem, or both date and emblem.
FLAGSTONES (ĊANGATURA)
The rooms were traditionally paved with limestone (tal-franka) flagstones. Once laid, these were all painted with linseed oil to prevent them from getting dirty too easily. Later on coloured cement tiles were introduced and gradually everybody changed to this modern, cleaner and more practical way of paving. These standard, eight by eight inches tiles, were elegantly designed with floral or later geometric motifs in a way that the room would look as if it were carpeted.
THICK WALLS (ĦITAN TAD-DOBBLU)
Outer walls of old houses were very thick and in Maltese are called ‘ħitan tad-dobblu’ meaning, double walls, however, these were much more than double walls.Today double walls are still built especially when constructing house facades using nine inch wide stone slabs (ċnagen) however, at the time when these houses of characters were built, a double wall meant a thickness of about four feet (approx. one hundred and twenty centimetres). This was so as to create a gap of about seventy or eighty centimetres between the outer and inner wall which was then filled with a mixture of soil and stone chippings (torba jew mramma). The thickness of these walls rendered the house as strong as a fortress and together with the height of the ceiling of each room, these walls provided very good insulation against the winter cold and the summer heat.
WHITEWASHING (TIBJID)
At a time when modern paints were unknown, whitewashing of rooms was carried out, using white lime for the ceilings, while the walls were washed in various colours. The colour was made by first mixing a heap of lime into thick paste and then a small portion of it was separated and coloured powder (in Maltese known as ‘terratombra’) which was available in various strong colours, was mixed into it. The white washer had enough experience to determine the right amounts of colour needed to obtain a certain delicate colour, as white washing always fades in colour when it dries.
The brush used for white washing (known as il-broxk tat-tibjid) was also very different from these we know today. The wooden handle was very long, about thirty centimetres, and its bristles resembled that of an ordinary broom rather than those of a paintbrush. It was very difficult to white wash a room unless you were very skilful, not only because of these brushes but more so, as the rooms were often artistically finished with stencilled patterns and occasionally, ceiling frescoes.
The ceiling, as already mentioned above, was always painted (whitewashed) white. This white colour of the ceiling used to continue also as a border (bordura) on the top part of the walls, immediately below the ceiling to a height equivalent to the thickness of the wooden beams. Further down this border by about seven centimetres, another two borders measuring about seven and three centimetres thick were painted in the same colour used for the dado (żokklatura). The dado was always the last three to four feet above the floor and this was always made of a deeper colour than the rest of the walls.The dado served a dual purpose; it embellished the room and, since the lower part of the wall was the more liable to be scratched, repainting only the dado would save all the hassle of whitewashing the whole room.
If the walls were painted pale green the dado would be painted in a dark green shade, if the wall was painted pale yellow the dado would be of a brownish colour, etc. Above the dado, two other borders similar to those found under the white of the ceiling were again painted. The rest of the room would be painted in the main, paler, colour. Thus whitewashing a room needed a skilled hand and plenty of work.
Contrary to recent trends, the interior of houses were almost always painted, as annual lime-washing was also a form of hygiene, so unpainted stone walls were only seen in rooms used for cattle, therefore it was considered degrading to have bare stone walls in a house. This fashion for stripped walls was set by foreign settlers in the 1970s and was subsequently and misguidedly copied by Maltese home-owners.
It is to be noted that the only the first storey of the house facade was whitewashed. The top part of the house was always left unpainted, and the stone would slowly weather, turning either red-brownish when facing the sun, or greyish-black if the house faced North. Fine buildings like Valletta’s Auberges were most often painted a deep ox-blood red, traces of which were also found on some public edifices like the old Porta Reale (Bieb il-Belt or Kingsgate).
PICTURES, PELMETS AND CURTAINS (INKWATRI, SOPRAPORTI U PURTIERI)
Until just after the Second World War the Victorian fashion of hanging many pictures/paintings on the walls around each room was prevalent. Many of these were religious pictures or landscapes, which made the rooms look warm and elegant as the rooms also had pelmets (sopraporti) and curtains at every window and door which looked very smart since these were all very high, to fit the high ceilings.
HOLES UNDER EVERY WINDOW SILL
Underneath every window inside the house, two, two cm. thick channels were cut in the wall in a V-shape, starting from either end of the window sill and running down at about 45 degrees to meet at a hole under the centre of the window. This hole penetrated from the inside to the outside in order to catch any rain water which might seep inside the window which would be channelled out again through this hole instead of flooding the room.
THICK, WOODEN DOORS IN BETWEEN EACH ROOM
The walls separating each room were often also double walls, and as if this were not enough, each room had solid panelled wooden doors. These doors used to be made in two parts, were secured by door bolts and also locked by a lock and key. These locks had a latch and during the night when the door was locked it was the habit to insert a wooden wedge in between its spring. This wooden wedge (feles ta’ l-injam) would be found, when not in use, hanging on a string nailed at the back of the door itself. These inside doors used to open on to the thickness of the walls and therefore would not be in the way when open.
The thickness of these inside walls was also ideal to construct built-in cupboards (armarju). In fact one would find a one or two of these built-in cupboards almost in every room. Some were small others were as big as the size of a large door. In the thickness of the wall, in the doorway leading from one room to the other, it was very common to find a recess which served as a place where to place an earthenware or paraffin lamp and occasionally these walls also had wide holes by the door-jambs as ‘cat-flaps’.
VERY OLD HOUSES
The oldest houses were those which, as I already explained, had their staircase built in between two walls, a basement and very often a spiral staircase at the back of the house. They also had open balconies made of stone and sometimes a niche with a statue on the facade of the house. Others even had a stone jutting out of the facade next to the main door, with a hole going through it so that horses could be tied up there. Another feature, which today has become very rare, was a three-step stone structure constructed alongside the house façade to make it easy for a horse rider to climb up on horseback, or to enable a lady or an elderly person to climb into a horse-drawn carriage.
THE SERVANTS’ QUARTERS
Some of these old and rather big houses also had servants’ quarters. These quarters were generally found on the first landing between the two flights of stairs. Here a door led to a very low room or rooms were the servants used to live. These rooms were at a mezzanine level, literally squeezed between the ground floor and the first floor. The owner of the house and his family always used the grand rooms on the high first floor called the ‘piano nobile’ which was favoured as being less damp and further away from the noise and smells of the street. The ground-floor rooms of these houses would be used as coach houses and even shops, while the unsanitary basement rooms were often rented out to poor families. This type of house is usually found around the cities of Mdina, Vittoriosa and Valletta.
LARGE STONE-STOVE (FUKLAR TAL-ĠEBEL)
Very old houses also had a large stone stove fixed to the kitchen walls. This looked like a rectangular working bench with a top area of approx. one metre long by seventy centimetres wide with holes on its side from where the logs and other timber were fed when building a fire. On its flat top there were other holes on which the pots were placed while cooking with covered by iron lids when not in use. Above all this a hood connected to a stone chimney extracted the smoke outside the house. This hood was also made of stone and covered the whole stove area starting from just above head level and receding until it met the ventilation opening in the ceiling and went up straight to the roof.
(copyright 2011 Edwin P. Borg – San Gwann)
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