Gozo’s oldest tower will be opened to the public for the first time as an interactive museum after a major conservation project that restored it to its former glory.

The Xlendi Tower is set to open its doors to the public this week, revealing the results of a three-year, €355,000 project spearheaded by the Munxar council, during which restoration workers uncovered, among other things, previously undocumented, centuries-old wall frescoes.

Pottery artefacts recovered from a Punic shipwreck embedded in Xlendi’s seabed will be displayed inside the tower for the first time.

The objects, which were found metres away from the tower, were recovered by British divers in the early 1960s and are part of what is thought to be a shipwreck that is at least 2,000 years old.

The tower has also been powered up with electricity for the first time, after it was fitted with solar panels and batteries that will enable it to be self-sufficient.

The tower before restoration works began. Exposed to the rough open sea, the tower suffered extensive erosion. Photo: Hermann Bonnici

Keeping the pirates away

The Xlendi tower is perched on the edge of the outmost tip of the bay, watching over the southwest coast of Gozo. It was built as a watch tower in 1650 by the Knights of Malta as part of their efforts to prevent attacks from pirates and soldiers of the Ottoman Empire. A few decades earlier, the island had fallen victim to a deadly siege that wiped out its population almost entirely.

In its heyday, watchmen employed by the knights would be stationed at the tower to watch out for seemingly dangerous movements on the horizon.

Architect and university lecturer Hermann Bonnici, who oversaw the restoration works and researched the tower’s history, said the knights were primarily concerned with defending Valletta and the Grand Harbour, but soon realised they must find ways to defend the islands’ exposed coasts as well.

“That is when they built the biggest watch towers, only to later realise it would be logistically difficult to man all of them, so they shifted to building smaller towers to serve as watch outposts, like the one in Xlendi,” he said.

Restoration workers tried to conserve the tower in its original structure, in some cases recovering fallen stones and retaining their joint lines instead of replacing them with new ones. Photo: Hermann Bonnici

A natural siege

But when the knights left Malta and threats of siege from the sea dwindled, the tower became redundant and fell victim to its own siege against the salty waves of the rough open sea.

And the adverse effects on the historical building were exacerbated by decades of neglect and shoddy restoration work.

“The British were less concerned with using or safeguarding the towers and had even considered demolishing them. And by the 1950s, the tower had drastically deteriorated,” Bonnici said.

When restoration works began in 2020, workers found that the outer layer of stone on one of the tower’s façades had completely collapsed, forcing them to recover all the stones they could save and rebuild the façade stone by stone.

The tower has two floors, a roof and a terrace. Its main door welcomes visitors inside the top floor, from where a staircase leads to two other rooms in the ground floor beneath it. It has another staircase leading to the roof and a well that is designed to store rainwater.

Unlike the other towers scattered along the Maltese coasts, the Xlendi one has a terrace at the back, which had also suffered extensive damage, said Bonnici who, along with his colleagues at the International Institute for Baroque Studies, coordinate a number of courses in baroque art and architecture, history and restoration.

A restoration worker uncovering one of the frescos discovered inside the tower. Photo: Peter Mohr

Frescoes discovery

During the works, previously undocumented wall frescoes were found hidden underneath a layer of paint.

The paintings are relatively simple but date back hundreds of years and show a crucifix, what looks like an altar, a landscape of a rural village and other traces of a decorative pattern.

“It was completely unexpected. We were taken by surprise because nobody knew about them,” Munxar mayor Damien Spiteri said.

“The discovery led us to take a slightly different direction in the project – first to acquire more funds to restore the frescoes and then incorporate them in an interactive museum to help visitors understand Xlendi’s rich history.”

The museum will also contain pottery artefacts from a Punic shipwreck believed to be at least 2,000 years old and is located just metres away from the tower.

A member of the British dive team handling an amphora that had just been recovered from the seabed off Xlendi bay. Photo: Heritage Malta

The frescoes are relatively simple but date back hundreds of years. Photo: Peter Mohr

The artefacts, which form part of a Heritage Malta collection and which the agency has loaned to the council, were once among several amphorae found in the shipwreck. The artefacts and the accompanying displays shed significant light on the kind of commercial activity and trade routes witnessed at Xlendi that date as far back as 2,000 years BC.

“The artefacts will leave visitors in awe of how impactful and significant this tiny bay was over the millennia,” Spiteri said.

The tower’s restoration works were part financed by EU funds, the Munxar council and the Parliamentary Secretariat for Local Government.

The tower will be inaugurated on Thursday and the public will be able to visit it for the first time during two open days on June 17 and 18.