Development threatens country house in Tarxien built before the Great Siege
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The 500-year-old Grade 1 scheduled Villa Barbaro in Tarxien may have withstood the onslaught of the Great Siege but it is under threat from an application to build an apartment block directly in front of it. The development would dwarf the unique two-storey hDevelopment threatens country house in Tarxien built before the Great Siege
The 500-year-old Grade 1 scheduled Villa Barbaro in Tarxien may have withstood the onslaught of the Great Siege but it is under threat from an application to build an apartment block directly in front of it. The development would dwarf the unique two-storey heritage country house and wipe out its all-important context. The owner of the house, Marquis Antony Cremona Barbaro, who has been fighting a frustrating battle to extend the buffer zones around his pre-Great Siege property, has thrown down the gauntlet in the firm belief that the protection of the context of a historical building of the sort is as important as scheduling the country house itself. In reality, he admitted, adequate buffer zones to ensure the proper safeguarding of these buildings and their gardens from disproportionately high surrounding development were seldom granted, with the result that many had already been “visually disfigured”, neutralising the purpose of the protective scheduling. “There is absolutely no point in giving maximum scheduling and supposedly full protection to these heritage buildings, as in the case of Villa Barbaro, if their setting is not safeguarded too,” he argued about the importance... Read more