REMOVING MALTA SLUM

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 76, 10 January 1949, Page 4

REMOVING MALTA SLUM

16th Century Mishap to be Rectified (By Jack Jenkins. —Renter’s Correspondent). (By Air Mail). ! VALETTA. The Government of Malta is to-day rectifying a mishap of the 16th century. A slum area in the low-lying Manderagg quarter of the town is at last to be cleared. Groups of its some 350 families are at intervals receiving three days’ notice to remove to alternative accommodation provided by the Government rent free, pending the construction of model workers’ dwellings on the Manderagg site. When the move' is complete, in the near future, Manderagg will „be cleared of inhabitants for the first time for more than 350 years. Then, for the first time for over three centuries, its noisome alleys, only 39 inches in width at some points, will be untenanted by the numerous children of the locality. Gone also will be the groups of gossiping housewives who exchange good natured bandage or chaff as they wait to fill their buckets and other receptacles from the public water standpipes in the street. For in Manderagg, only a minority of the houses have a lavatory or water, and Government scavengers daily flush and periodically lime-wash the 19 public lavatories set at intervals along the twisting length of the Strada Manderagg, this slumland’s single street.

A Model City Planned

The origin of this slum goes bade to* the first plans for a model city drawn up by the Militant/and Soveleign Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem when they arrived in Malta from Rhodes in 1530. In spite of the fighting and siege of 15G5 which marked Islam’s last great bid for naval in the Central Mediternanean, Valetta, named after the Grand Master, Jean Parisot de la Valette, rose on the rocky promontory between the two main harbours. Massive bastions, /ramparts, curtains, escarpments and moats still testify today to the defensive impregnability of Valetta under the Knights. One part of the Valetta plan, however, came to nought. The architects had agreed .to the provision of an innermost safe anchorage, called a darsena or mandracchio, for 10 galleys. This was to he excavated from near the north-western shore of the promontory on which Valetta stands. Regulations were made prohibiting the quarrying of any stone, except for the provision of additional water storage .reservoirs, i from/ anywhere but the site of the proposed mandracchio, which was scheduled to cover an area of some 21 acres. While the general layout' of Valetta streets .was planned with regular north to south and west to east crossings more reminiscent of North America in the 20th century than European the 16th century, the 21 acres destined for the future galley pool remained outside the general town-planning regulations. Slum Area in Old Quarry By the turn of the century and for a variety of reasons, including the fact that galleys were no longer being built, the mandracchio project was abandoned, but by then a quarry of varying depth had been excavated from the Portli-Western slope with the lowest level only some 12 feet above sea level. In this quarry, there .sprang up a slum area which has persisted until to-day. By 1600, buildings, bad already appeared in the quarry and with the passing of the years building continued until the mandracchio or Manderagg, as it is popularly known now, became a congested slum area defying solution. Many of.the houses which are now to disappear, date(back two or three hundred years. They are set cheek by jowl with no conceivable architectural-form or pattern, for they just grew up, often with additional storeys added as required or when convenient.