Gwardamanġa (sometimes written Guardamangia or Gwarda Mangia) is a hamlet in

Pietà The Pietà (; meaning "pity", "compassion") is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus after his body was removed from the cross. It is most often found in sculpture. The Pietà is a specific form o ...

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

. Gwardamanġa is the home of St. Luke's Hospital, Malta's former general public hospital, and

Villa Guardamangia Villa Guardamangia (Italian – 'look' and 'eat'), formerly known as Casa Medina and sometimes referred to as ''Casa Guardamangia'', is a townhouse in Gwardamanġa, Pietà, Malta, which served as the residence of Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of ...

, the former home of

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

. It is also the location where the

Rediffusion House Rediffusion House is a Modernist building located in Gwardamanġa, limits of Pietà, Malta. Designed by the architect Carmelo Falzon, the building was completed in 1958 for Rediffusion (Malta) Ltd. It briefly housed Television Malta in the 1960s ...

is found.

Overview

At Gwardamanġa one can find the

, a large two-storey building, best known for its elaborate porch which is reached by a flight of steps from each side. The first has a convex configuration over which is a wide elliptical arch. Scroll

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

s support the lintels of the sides, while a square-headed doorway is set in an elliptical arched recess. On top of the porch are a series of segmentally arched, louvred windows. Other features include semi-circular

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...

balconies on each side of the porch, louvred windows and a 'remissa' doorway. The façade lacks decoration, apart from a

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

d parapet wall. The villa was leased by

Lord Louis Mountbatten Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979) was a British naval officer, colonial administrator and close relative of the British royal family. Mountbatten, who was of Germa ...

around 1929. At various times between 1946 and 1953,

stayed at the villa as both Princess and then Queen while her fiancé, and later husband, The Duke of Edinburgh was stationed in Malta as a serving

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

officer. Philip and Elizabeth lived in Malta for a period between 1949 and 1951, which made Malta the only foreign country in which the Queen ever resided. It has been speculated that her son

Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*k ...

was conceived here. The Queen re-visited the villa during her state visit to Malta in 1992.

References

Sources

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Coordinates In geometry, a coordinate system is a system that uses one or more numbers, or coordinates, to uniquely determine the position of the points or other geometric elements on a manifold such as Euclidean space. The order of the coordinates is sig ...

: Populated places in Malta Pietà, Malta {{Malta-geo-stub