Tunnara Museum

About the museum

The Westreme Battery was built by the Order of St John in 1715–1716 as part of its first programme of coastal fortifications and guarded Mellieħa Bay. Its design, with a semicircular gun platform and a large blockhouse, was unlike any other battery on Malta. In 1748 Grand Master Pinto inaugurated a tunnara, a traditional tuna fishery, at the battery, and the building was later used to store nets and fishing gear. In 1798 it was the first battery overrun by the French invasion force.

In the Second World War the British used the blockhouse as a beach post and added a searchlight room at the water’s edge. After the war the battery passed back to the owners of the tunnara. Today only the blockhouse survives, while the gun platform and parapet are gone. It was restored in 2007–2008, and further work was announced in 2019.

As the Tunnara Museum it tells the story of the battery through its different eras and shows original tools used for the mattanza, the trapping of bluefin tuna in the bay, together with the history of the tunnara and the people who worked it.

Highlights

• Blockhouse of a Knights’ period coastal battery, built in 1715–1716
• Original tools of the mattanza, the traditional trapping of bluefin tuna
• History of the tunnara of Mellieħa Bay
• Second World War beach post and searchlight room

Permanent exhibition

• The Tunnara and the Battery – The history of the battery through different eras and original artefacts used for the mattanza, the traditional trapping of bluefin tuna in Mellieħa Bay.

Operated by

Mellieħa Local Council

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