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.​