Fort Delimara

Fort Delimara (Maltese: Il-Fortizza ta' Delimara) is a polygonal fort in Marsaxlokk, Malta. It was built between 1876 and 1888 by the British as part of a chain of fortifications intended to protect Marsaxlokk Harbour. Today, the fort is still intact but is in need of restoration, and is in danger of collapse due to coastal erosion.

The fort was built between 1876 and 1878 by the British. The main gate carries a date of 1881, but this is the date of completion of the gatehouse, not the commissioning of the fort.

Fort Delimara was one of a ring of forts and batteries that protected Marsaxlokk harbour, along with Fort Tas-Silġ at the shoreward end of Delimara point, Fort San Lucian on Kbira point in the middle of Marsaxlokk bay, Fort Benghisa on Benghisa Point, and the Pinto and Ferreti batteries on the shores of Marsaxlokk Bay.

The nearby 17th century Delimara Tower was demolished to clear Fort Delimara's line of fire.

On 29 March 1903, defective bombs, which were stored at Fort Delimara prior to being disposed of, accidentally detonated after children tampered with a bomb in an attempt to open it, killing four.

In 1956 the fort was stripped of the majority of its artillery. Soon after, the fort was abandoned for a considerable period, and in 1975 it was leased by the Government of Malta to a local farmer, who used it to raise pigs from 1982 to 2005.

After protracted negotiations, ownership of Fort Delimara was transferred to Heritage Malta on 11 August 2005. The agency pays an annual rent of €764 to the government for the fort. Despite being a pigs farm and a considerable amount of modern debris, the fort still retains four of its original complement of fourteen Victorian 12.5-inch 38 ton rifled muzzle-loading guns mounted on dwarf carriages.

The site is in a derelict condition and is under the responsibility of Heritage Malta. There are plans to restore the fort and open it as a museum, but nothing materialized so far. It is currently not open to the public.

Fort Delimara is mostly underground, with the fort's main armament mounted in casemates set in the cliffs on the shoreward face of Delimara Point. At the surface it is a polygonal fort, hexagonal in outline, with rock cut ditches on four sides, and the gently curving vertical cliff forming the convex fifth and sixth sides.

Text adapted from “Fort Delimara” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fort Delimara ranks #5,172 of 8,134 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #24 of the 29 mapped in Malta. Founded 1876, it is older than 6% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 607 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. 24 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how Malta compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗