“How extraordinary to have something like that,” the Duchess said, after seeing how it emerged from the first floor on pillars and continued the length of the garden. “It almost doesn’t make sense?”
“I suppose if you’re living upstairs, rather than going down into the garden to go outside, it’s just an extension?” replied the Duke.
They strolled underneath, taking in the palm trees and orange trees leading up to a crumbling fountain. The garden, too, has largely been reclaimed by nature, with grasses and weeds through the courtyard, decorated by white butterflies, and small lizards roaming freely up the walls.
Above, a couple waved from a balcony adorned with a Union flag and Maltese flag side by side.
Outside, a small crowd gathered, some curious and holding phones, others eager to pay respects in some way to the late Queen. “Malta was the only place outside the UK she called home,” locals say with pride.
“Visiting Malta is always very special for me,” the late Queen said in Malta in 2015, when she visited the island nation for a Commonwealth meeting in what became her final visit. “I remember happy days here with Prince Phillip when we were first married.”
Then, she was presented with a painting of Villa Guardamangia’s exterior, saying “Oh look, Guardamangia, that’s very nice to have” and adding that it “looks rather sad now”.
In a 1991 biography, Maj Alfred Briffa, a friend, described Princess Elizabeth’s days in Malta as happier than at any other time in her life before or since.
“She was a naval wife and had no responsibilities,” the book records. “She was allowed to roam around Malta unescorted; she drove her sports car with a scarf on her head, and went to the movies with her husband, buying a 1S 6d ticket each to go in and sit with him in the back row holding hands.
“The couple often visited friends, sitting on the floor and enjoying picnic-style dishes of timpana, a local favourite.
“After dinner they would play card games; when Prince Philip got the king of hearts in his hand, would exclaim ‘it’s that man again!’”
‘Magical days’
Lady Pamela Hicks recalled: “They were magical days of endless picnics, sunbathing and waterskiing. Prince Philip was a sort of Greek god and she was beautiful with that marvellous complexion.
“She was able to lead a normal life, wander through the town and do some shopping, and whenever the Fleet came in, we would rush to the Barrakka [seafront gardens] to see it which was always a fantastic sight.”
The property itself has six bedrooms, three bathrooms, a hall, servants’ quarters on the ground floor, a fireplace in most rooms and – improbably – the remnants of a heating system.
The Queen returned to the island many times, including for her 60th wedding anniversary, but was not able to see inside her former home.
In 1992, when being driven past, she asked for the car to be slowed down to see it.
The villa became the centre of commemorations on the island following the Queen’s death in 2022, with flowers laid at the door.
Heritage Malta is now seeking information, objects, photographs or memories from anyone who knew the couple during their stay on the island as they plan the reconstruction.
They have been given permission to visit the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, where curators have viewed Princess Elizabeth’s letters home to her parents for insight into her time there.
While in Malta, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh will also view items relating to his late mother, including her letter sent at the moment of Malta’s independence 60 years ago.
They are on the island to celebrate the anniversary.