Stop 09 of 9

Villa Rundle Gardens

The British century, in a public park

Narration · 2 min

Have it read to you while you look at the thing itself, hands in pockets.

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Guide to Villa Rundle Gardens

Villa Rundle Gardens were laid out in 1914 and are the most obviously British thing in Victoria — a formal municipal park of the kind being built across the Empire at that moment, dropped into a Gozitan town. They are also a good place to think about the century that emptied the island.

An imperial park

The gardens are named after General Sir Leslie Rundle, then Governor of Malta, and they are symmetrical, formal and planted with palms and bougainvillea.

What the British left on Gozo

The British century is easy to overlook here. The Knights left the walls and the Church left the domes; the British left the administration — road names, letterboxes, police stations, the bus network, driving on the left, and parks like this one.

The emigration

Gozo's experience of that century was largely one of departure. There was little work, and Gozitans left in very large numbers, for Malta, for North Africa, and for Australia, Canada and the United States.

A number of villages have more descendants abroad than residents at home, and money sent back from those families paid for a good deal of what this walk passes.

What to look at

  • The formal Edwardian layout — axial paths, a bandstand, clipped hedges
  • The Rundle memorial and colonial-era dedications
  • Old Gozitan farmhouses visible over the garden wall

Practical

Access
Free, open daily, with shade and benches — the best place in Victoria to wait out the afternoon heat.
Onward
The bus terminus is beside It-Tokk, five minutes away, with services to Mġarr for the Malta ferry.