Advantageously located midway between Valletta and Mdina, the village of Attard has seen enormous growth in recent years, turning this once tiny parish into a large conurbation. Notwithstanding the pressures of modern development mushrooming at its edges, Attard has successfully retained an attractive core featuring one of the island’s best preserved parish churches and a string of impressive historical residences.
 Attard's Parish Church The Attard area has been inhabited since prehistoric times, as witnessed by a number of Punic and Roman tomb finds in and around the village. Originally an outlying area of the Birkirkara parish, Attard was granted parish status in 1575. Soon after that date the building of its church was started. The parish church of St. Mary, built in 1613, occupies the central part of the town’s Main Street. The church is the foremost renaissance monument on the island, featuring a Roman temple style façade and an intricately carved doorway - the finest of its kind in Malta. Tumas Dingli, a native son of Attard, designed the church when he was just twenty two years of age, a feat of some note for a person so young in those far off days. Dingli went on to design various other parish churches, all to a greater or lesser degree altered beyond recognition, while his church in Attard is virtually unchanged since his time, bar the addition of a graceful bell tower erected a century after the church was built. The narrow streets around the church are among the more interesting and feature a number of imposing residences, pretty alleys decorated with niches, a pleasant arcaded piazzetta and, of more recent addition, a couple of cafes and a boutique art gallery. |
Exquisite carving on church doorway There are more bits and pieces of history on Main Street. Just next to the Local Council’s offices is an old wall mounted post-box dating to Queen Victoria’s reign – one of the few extant in the islands. More interesting still are two nearby grand residences. Villa Barbaro dates from the latter days of the Knights, and it is recorded that Grand Master De Rohan was feted here by the Maltese nobility on the way to his investiture in Mdina. Later, during the turbulent two years of French rule, the villa served as a hotbed of anti-French activity and military operations against the Napoleonic invaders were planned in its gardens. Ironically the imposing Casa Bonavita just across the street was owned by a Maltese Francophile – inevitably when the tables were turned on the French the house was ransacked in true shadenfreude fashion by pro-British Maltese.
A little further down, Main Street continues as Saint Anthony Street featuring another grand residence, Villa Apap Bologna. Today the official residence of the American ambassador, one of its previous inhabitants was the celebrated English zoologist and author Desmond Morris. Morris came to the house shortly after publishing his runaway success ‘The Naked Ape’ in 1967 – in part in order to avoid a huge tax bill. A frequent guest of Morris at the time was another celebrity, the much loved naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.
A little further down, Main Street continues as Saint Anthony Street featuring another grand residence, Villa Apap Bologna. Today the official residence of the American ambassador, one of its previous inhabitants was the celebrated English zoologist and author Desmond Morris. Morris came to the house shortly after publishing his runaway success ‘The Naked Ape’ in 1967 – in part in order to avoid a huge tax bill. A frequent guest of Morris at the time was another celebrity, the much loved naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.
Carving on Villa Barbaro's facade Saint Anthony Street now enters a straight stretch – arguably the loveliest residential street in Malta, lined with a number of fine townhouses and early twentieth century villas and one truly grand palatial residence – Villa Bologna. This villa was built in 1745 and was eventually the residence of Sir Gerald Strickland – a remarkable character who was Prime Minister of Malta between 1927 and 1932. Prior to this Strickland was variously also an MP in the British House of Commons, Governor of New South Wales and Governor of Tasmania. The sumptuous villa and its vast gardens, though still privately owned, are open to the public by appointment – with a descendent of Sir Gerald doing the honours of a private tour.
Of the other villas lining the street the one called Roseville is the most singular. Built in 1912 in an Art Nouveau style which is quite unique to the island, the house is the only building in Malta where polycromy was used on the façade, with recessed panels painted in red and motifs picked out in other colours. Abandoned for a long time, the villa has now been sensitively restored and serves as a home for the elderly.
The confines of Attard, whose motto is Florigera rosis halo ("I perfume the air with blossoms”), end appropriately at San Anton Palace and Gardens. The palace was built by Grand Master de Paule between 1623 and 1636 and today serves as the official residence of the President of Malta. While the palace is not usually open to the public, both its tiny and lavishly decorated chapel and the gardens are. The gardens are in fact the largest formal gardens in Malta with various points of interest and trees planted by various dignitaries – including one planted in 1921 by the Emperor (then Crown Prince) Hirohito of Japan.
Next to the gardens is the recently opened President’s Kitchen Garden – originally the garden that supplied the palace with a variety of herbs and vegetables and now comprising a café, an educational area and a small menagerie of animals – a good place to wind down after touring the highlights of this lovely village.
Of the other villas lining the street the one called Roseville is the most singular. Built in 1912 in an Art Nouveau style which is quite unique to the island, the house is the only building in Malta where polycromy was used on the façade, with recessed panels painted in red and motifs picked out in other colours. Abandoned for a long time, the villa has now been sensitively restored and serves as a home for the elderly.
The confines of Attard, whose motto is Florigera rosis halo ("I perfume the air with blossoms”), end appropriately at San Anton Palace and Gardens. The palace was built by Grand Master de Paule between 1623 and 1636 and today serves as the official residence of the President of Malta. While the palace is not usually open to the public, both its tiny and lavishly decorated chapel and the gardens are. The gardens are in fact the largest formal gardens in Malta with various points of interest and trees planted by various dignitaries – including one planted in 1921 by the Emperor (then Crown Prince) Hirohito of Japan.
Next to the gardens is the recently opened President’s Kitchen Garden – originally the garden that supplied the palace with a variety of herbs and vegetables and now comprising a café, an educational area and a small menagerie of animals – a good place to wind down after touring the highlights of this lovely village.
Roseville - Arguably Malta's finest art nouveau building
This article was first published in the April 2015 issue of Il-Bizzilla - the Air Malta inflight magazine
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