The Royal Engineers’ Workshop
What was callously known as the ex-Licensing and Testing
Building, is state owned under the tenure of the Ministry of Transport and
Infrastructural Projects and is partly used by the Building Regulations
Office. The hall and yard, which now houses the CENTRU SERVIZZ FAMILJA,
was previously vacated and unused, since Transport Malta moved into other
premises.
The building was built and first used as workshops by the Royal
Engineers in the first quarter of twentieth century, inter war period, when the
Royal Engineers were housed at Floriana barracks, what is now known as Beltisebh
and at St. Francis Ravelin, now offices of the Planning Authority.
The Corps of Engineers was formed in 1717 from the old Board of
Ordnance and it was an officer-only Corps with other ranks supplied by
contracted civilian workers. The Corps of Engineers became a Royal Corps
in 1787 and in 1856, the officers of the Corps of Royal Engineers and the men
of the Corps of Royal Military Artificers merged to form the Corps of
Royal Engineers.
The buildings only reference to the Royal Engineers is the crest
still visible though badly eroded on the central part built over two stories.​