page_title: Fortifications of Gibraltar
section_title: Nineteenth century
hierarchical_section_title: Fortifications of Gibraltar / History / British period / Nineteenth century
caption_attribution_description: Gardiner's Battery, Gibraltar
context_page_description: The fortifications of Gibraltar have made the Rock of Gibraltar and its environs "probably the most fought over and most densely fortified place in Europe, and probably, therefore, in the world", as Field Marshal Sir John Chapple has put it. The Gibraltar peninsula, located at the far southern end of Iberia, has great strategic importance as a result of its position by the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. It has repeatedly been contested between European and North African powers and has endured fourteen sieges since it was first settled in the 11th century. The peninsula's occupants – Moors, Spanish, and British – have built successive layers of fortifications and defences including walls, bastions, casemates, gun batteries, magazines, tunnels and galleries. At their peak in 1865, the fortifications housed around 681 guns mounted in 110 batteries and positions, guarding all land and sea approaches to Gibraltar. The fortifications continued to be in military use until as late as the 1970s and by the time tunnelling ceased in the late 1960s, over 34 miles of galleries had been dug in an area of only 2.6 square miles.
context_section_description: Gibraltar remained at peace for 121 years after the Great Siege – one of the longest periods of peace in its history – but work continued to develop the fortifications, driven to a large extent by the increasingly rapid pace of change in the power and range of artillery. The Grand Casemates, a huge bombproof barracks, was built in 1817. Proposals were put forward in 1826 to rebuild the Line Wall with new bastions, though they were never put into practice.  In 1841, General Sir John Thomas Jones of the Royal Engineers conducted a study of Gibraltar's defences which prompted major changes and defined the nature of the fortifications for many years to come.
  Jones's recommendations were based on a number of key assumptions about the threats faced in particular sectors of the fortifications. First, the North Front was so strongly defended that it was very unlikely to be vulnerable. Second, the sea defences below the South Bastion could be breached but an invader would still face the barrier of the South Front. Third, the Europa defences might also be breached, but a defender holding the narrow Europa Pass or the heights of Windmill Hill could easily enfilade an invader; as Jones put it, "two hundred men on Windmill Hill and Europa Pass ought to hold as many thousands at bay". Fourth, the main threat was – as Green had recognised 80 years earlier – to the town itself. An enemy breaching the sea wall in the town would bypass the two land fronts and be able to attack them from their highly vulnerable rear.
  Jones also recognised that the development of more powerful and accurate artillery made the old system of shoreline batteries extremely vulnerable. He proposed that the shoreline artillery should be pulled back some 300 yards (270 metres) to "retired batteries" situated higher up the hill, equipped with the latest and most powerful guns and firing from barbettes rather than through embrasures. Such positions could not easily be seen from the sea, were out of the effective range of enemy ships and could not be flanked by landward guns. The sea wall would be defended solely by musket fire with the artillery support being provided from the bastions and retired batteries.
  Jones's recommendations were immediately accepted and put into practice. A series of new batteries aligned on a roughly north-south axis facing west towards the harbour was constructed, including Jones', Civil Hospital, Raglan's, Gardiner's, Queen Victoria's, Lady Augusta's, Prince of Wales and Cumberland batteries. Further batteries and fortifications were constructed around Rosia Bay near the south of the peninsula and Windmill Hill was strengthened around its entire perimeter, with Retrenched Barracks at its north end blocking access to the higher ground behind. The sea wall in the town was straightened and strengthened with the building of two new curtain walls, Prince Albert's Front and Wellington Front. Defensive breakwaters were constructed in front of both to prevent an armoured enemy ship ramming the walls.
  Gibraltar's guns were reorganised and upgraded from 1856. Many of the 24-pounder guns were replaced with 32-pounders and the retired batteries were equipped with 68-pounders. A wide variety of old guns was still in use, including iron-cast 6-, 12- and 18-pounder, which complicated the supply and maintenance of the batteries. At its peak, the fortress had 681 guns in 110 batteries and positions. As the British artist William Henry Bartlett put it in 1851, "Ranges of batteries rising from the sea, tier above tier, extend along its entire sea-front, at the northern extremity of which is the town ; every nook in the crags bristles with artillery". However, only a decade later the rapid introduction of rifled artillery firing explosive shells was already beginning to make the fortifications obsolete. As a result of recommendations by Colonel William Jervois, the coastal batteries were upgraded with armoured casemates made from expensively constructed iron laminates. He also proposed to build a sea fort in the bay, along the lines of Britain's Palmerston Fo
caption: Gardiner's Battery, one of the "retired" batteries built in the 1850s. Piles of shells are visible behind the gunners.
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