Antonio Cassar Torregiani who was living in Casa Rocca Piccola created this shelter in 1935 for his family and his servants. It was more of an emergency shelter to be used if anyone was in the house during an air raid because he had moved his family to his Villa in St Julian’s where the bombing was less severe.

Thousands of people moved out of the city during the war but the ones who stayed either lived in the large wells or created their own private shelters like this one.

The zig-zag construction was deliberate to prevent the blast of a bomb from passing through the passages and causing injury. This was the first private bomb shelter built in Malta according to records and it was accessed from the garden of Casa Rocca Piccola.