Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna - the Malta Heritage Trust, is a voluntary non-governmental organisation which is active in the fields of cultural heritage preservation and management. Amongst its principal aims are:

• raising of public awareness about Malta’s cultural heritage diversity and richness
• salvaging through restoration and sympathetic use of abandoned or threatened heritage monuments and buildings
• facilitating public accessibility to heritage monuments, buildings and sites under its care
• creation and management of cultural heritage museums and collections
• preservation of the national collective memory through the collection of oral histories and personal documentation and records of individuals with a story to tell

Presently, FWA looks after several historic buildings and sites most of which are of a military nature.  These represent the last six centuries of Malta’s history, from the renaissance to the present day. These include a  16th century flanking battery, a counterguard and a Saluting Battery, three 17th century coastal towers and a fougasse, a 17th century grand gatehouse within the Cottonera Lines, two 18th century coastal batteries, a 19th century coastal fort home to the world’s largest cannon – the Armstrong 100ton gun, a 19th century military bridge ,examination battery and gun powder magazine, a 1940s wartime air raid shelter, five WW2 defence posts and a beach gun post, WW2/ Cold War Combined Headquarters which is the largest underground complex in Malta and Room 50 – the former Commander-in-Chief Office in which Italy formally surrender its fleet in WW2.

FWA is responsible from seven military museums and their collections of artefacts. Our collections are mostly of a military nature and consists of thousands of original items from the 16th century to the present time. It holds graphic and printed material, uniforms, armour, badges and insignia, medals, weapons, ammunition, equipment, personal items, instruments, artillery pieces and even tanks.

FWA also keeps an extensive reference library and an archive consisting of the personal documentation of Maltese and foreign servicemen who had served in Malta in both World Wars.

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