Gran Castello Historic House

Set foot into a time warp hurling you three centuries back, just by walking into the Gran Castello Historic House, nestled inside the impenetrable walls of the Citadel in Victoria, Gozo.

This is a cluster of interconnected houses in Bernardo DeOpuo Street. While still hosting a range of exhibits illustrating the local domestic, rural and traditional ways of life, this site’s set-up is gradually being transformed to reflect a domestic atmosphere and way of life typical of an 18th century urban environment.

The architectural features of the interlinked houses betray some Sicilian and Catalan influences and show familiarity with a sophisticated Late Gothic style. Their fine quality reveals that these properties belonged to wealthy families. In 1983 the houses were rehabilitated as a museum.

The ground floor and mezzanine levels of the southern house feature a reconstructed historic house set-up complete with work and habitation spaces for the serving personnel. The remaining ground floor spaces in the rest of the residential complex are devoted largely to rural trades and skills, mainly agriculture. A spectacular beast-driven mill occupies the centre of a large mill-room on the same floor.

Once the living quarters of the resident wealthy families, the first floor hosts some interesting specimens of period furniture besides other items related to important local but mostly domestic crafts, such as lace-making and weaving. The latter are accompanied by complementary items like the cotton gin and the spinning wheel.

The Gran Castello Historic House offers an additional experience to the visitor through an audio-visual presentation about the late Medieval set-up of the same house cluster within its contemporary urban context.