Fort St Angelo, or HMS St Angelo as the British had dubbed it when it served as the headquarters of its Mediterranean fleet, is a 1,000-year-old national icon that has long been crying out for attention.

As the fleet’s headquarters, the fort played a vital role and was self-sufficient: it had a sick bay, dormitories, silos, a water distillation plant, a mechanised flour mill and even a cinema, one of the first on the island. It was established in the same period as Pembroke’s now dilapidated Australia Hall.

Matthew Balzan, Heritage Malta’s curator for Fort St Angelo, has been focusing specifically and continuously on the fort for the past 14 months. And together with senior curator Godwin Vella and project manager Ruben Abela, the team is aiming to find out how the fort evolved over the centuries.

Of particular interest is the fact that in medieval times Fort St Angelo served as a sentinel of the Mediterranean – a sort of mini state within another state that had its own laws. It also served as a wartime refuge for Maltese living in the Grand Harbour area.

From being the sede of the Castellan, it became a ‘parliament’ and later the Knights’ seat of power. It then took on a more military role and constituted the main defence of the entrance of Grand Harbour.

For seven centuries, the fort was continuously readapted to suit different purposes.

A great deal of speculation surrounds the fort’s beginnings. While some believe it was built in Roman times, others are more uncertain. It could very well have started out as a prehistoric temple. This latter theory holds some water based on some accounts from the 16th century, but there is no hard evidence to back it up.

When the Arabs conquered Malta in 870AD, they were said to have badly damaged a fort, which could very well have been St Angelo.

In 2007, Heritage Malta was given responsibility for substantial sections of the fort including its entrance and almost all its open areas, and tasked with turning the fort into a living experience.

The government budgeted €1.5 million for urgent restoration work in 2010 and on 20 February Heritage Malta received the much awaited welcome news that a €13.4 million ERDF grant had been approved.

A full interview with Matthew Balzan, Godwin Vella, and Ruben Abela will be published in tomorrow’s issue of The Malta Independent.