St Paul's Battery (Marsaxlokk)

 military, place with historical importance

British fortification, called St Paul’s Battery.
Located around 400 meters to the north of Fort Tas-Silg, this site was chosen for the defence of St Thomas Bay as the guns of the newly-built Fort Tas-Silg could not easily cover that area. The battery was completed in 1886 and was armed with three 7-inch RML (rifled muzzle loading) guns weighing 6.5 tons each, mounted on six-foot platforms. The battery had no provisions for gun crew accommodation and its garrison was stationed at the nearby Fort Tas-Silg. The battery was not used for long as by 1900 it had lost its importance as a defensive position and was disarmed and abandoned. Today the battery is covered with shrubs and trees and its ditch cluttered with debris. However, one can still see the gun emplacements, the ditch and the entrance to a stepped passageway leading down to the battery’s underground magazine. So one can still imagine what it was like in the nineteenth century, when the guns were being loaded and fired.