Defence Posts, Beachposts and Pillboxes

Defence Posts, Beachposts and Pillboxes are abundant in the Maltese landscape, usually located along the coast or further inland as a second line of defence.

The pillbox was a concrete machine gun emplacement, the shape of which evoked contemporary boxes used for pills, hence the term ‘pillbox’. Despite the rich variety of designs, the pillbox had a number of common features, most commonly the rectangular observation cupola that allowed an all round vision.

The history of the construction of such structures, usually associated with the British military, is rather murky. What we do know, however, is that the earliest military records relating to the construction of pillboxes in Malta date to August 1938. The widespread construction of pillboxes was set in motion by the threat posed by Abyssinian Crisis in 1935, and later constructed liberally during the years of the Second World War.

The earliest type of pillboxes were distinguished by their camouflage of rubble stone cladding, such as the one shown in images 2 to 4. Such features were soon abandoned in favour of pillboxes built to simpler and more standardised patterns, such as the one in image 1, adopting a more boxlike form and finished in concrete. Nevertheless, a lot of the early pillboxes were actually beach posts, as visible in image 5. Another less common group of pillboxes consisted of farmhouses converted into defence posts, such as the one in images 6 and 7.

Nowadays, pillboxes are protected cultural heritage features that serve as a fine example of British military history in Malta. Many of these defence structures are even scheduled by the Planning Authority, and are to be protected in line with the Cultural Heritage Act 2021 (CAP 445).

Source: Spiteri, S. C. 1996, “Field Defences and Pillboxes”, in 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘔𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘔𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘢, Stephen C. Spiteri, pp. 497-538.