Hardy Town , Gibraltar Hardy Town was a temporary civilian settlement established near the south end of the Gibraltar peninsula during the Great Siege of Gibraltar ( 1779 – 83 ) . The intensive Spanish and French bombardment reduced the town of Gibraltar to ruins and prompted many of its inhabitants , and eventually the off - duty members of the British garrison , to relocate to a spot out of range of the enemy ' s land - based guns ( though as they discovered , they were still vulnerable to naval gunfire ) . After it became known for its appalling conditions , a British quartermaster named Hardy was put in charge of the settlement and it acquired his name . Hardy Town was eventually abandoned and torn down after the siege ended and the population moved back to Gibraltar ' s main town within the city walls . Establishment . Despite the fighting during the siege , many civilians remained alongside the British garrison to endure four years of Spanish and French bombardment . Gibraltar ' s civilian inhabitants found themselves in a precarious position when the siege began . They were required by the garrison to maintain six months ' worth of provisions for themselves in case of siege but most had not done so . Many left Gibraltar but some , as Colonel John Drinkwater wrote , " were induced to weather out the storm , by the property they had in the garrison , which was probably their all , and which they could not remove with themselves . " In August 1779 , the civilians were given permission to " erect wooden huts and sheds at the southward , above the Naval hospital , whither they removed their principal papers , & c . that they might be secure from the annoyance of the enemy , in case the town should be bombarded . " When the bombardment began , it produced scenes of chaos . The inhabitants were in deepest distress ; mothers were seen clasping their tender infants ; children were running wildly about scared and crying ; while the careful male part were busily employed in packing up their most portable and valuable effects to convey them to [ Hardy Town ] . Samuel Ancell , an eyewitness to the siege , wrote about the establishment of Hardy Town in a letter to his brother : Living conditions . The huts soon became a shanty town , situated out of range of the Spanish land batteries at a spot near the southern end of the peninsula , between the Naval Hospital and the South Barracks on the road leading to Europa Point ( now Europa Road ) . It was first jokingly dubbed New Jerusalem but the appallingly unhygienic conditions led to it being renamed Black Town . A British Army quartermaster named Major Hardy was put in charge of the encampment , and it was eventually called Hardy Town after him . The garrison were somewhat less complimentary and called it the Cowards ' Retreat or the Female Camp . Although the camp was out of reach of the land batteries , it was still vulnerable to cannon - fire coming from Spanish gunboats in the Bay of Gibraltar . In May 1781 , a shell from a gunboat was recorded as having hit a house in Hardy Town and " killed Mr . Israel , a very respectable Jew , with Mrs . Tourale , a female relation , and his clerk . " One soldier recorded : It was not just the Jews and Genoese who lived there , as eventually many of the British soldiers and officers did so too . The enemy bombardment made the town of Gibraltar uninhabitable . By the start of 1781 , as Drinkwater recorded : Even the Governor left the town , living during the daytime in a large tent in the south of the peninsula but returning at night . Off - duty soldiers encamped in Hardy Town , and one writer records an incident in which part of a shell given extra range by a strong wind " fell into the house of a Mr . Maxwell . . . and made its way through the bed of Major Baugh , of the 39th regiment , who then resided in said house " . By the end of the siege , the civilian population of Gibraltar had fallen to fewer than 1 , 000 people , the rest having either fled abroad , died of starvation or disease , or killed by shellfire . However , people soon returned to begin the work of rebuilding the ruined town and by 1787 , four years later , the number of civilians had bounced back to 3 , 386 .