Europa Advance Batteries

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Europa Advance Battery
Part of Fortifications of Gibraltar
Gibraltar
1890s G Washington Wilson - Europa Advance Battery.jpg
Europa Advance in the 1890s (by George Washington Wilson)
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Europa Advance Battery
Coordinates 36°07′02″N5°20′31″W / 36.117356°N 5.341952°W / 36.117356; -5.341952 Coordinates: 36°07′02″N5°20′31″W / 36.117356°N 5.341952°W / 36.117356; -5.341952
Type Artillery batteries
Site information
Owner Government of Gibraltar

Europa Advance Batteries were a group of three artillery batteries in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. They are located north east from Europa Point. [1]

Contents

Description

The group of batteries are located east of Europa Advance Road north west of Europa Point at the southern end of Gibraltar. Europa had been the site of earlier Spanish and Moorish fortifications as well as those constructed by the British which included walls, scarping and the batteries. (The definition of an advance battery is that is outside the main defended area but it is close enough to be offered support from the weapons of the main fortification.) Europa Pass Battery, Europa Battery, Eliott's Battery, Harding's Battery, Half Way Battery, Lighthouse Battery, Lady Louisa's Battery and Woodford's Battery were all supported by a local barracks. [2]

Related Research Articles

Europa Point

Europa Point, is the southernmost point of Gibraltar. At the end of the Rock of Gibraltar, the area is flat and occupied by such features as a playing field and a few buildings. On a clear day, views of North Africa can be seen across the Strait of Gibraltar including Ceuta and the Rif Mountains of Morocco; as well as the Bay of Gibraltar and the Spanish towns along its shores. It is accessed from the old town by Europa Road.

Streets in Gibraltar

Streets in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar are represented by road signs as in the United Kingdom. As of 2007, Gibraltar has a network of 29 kilometres (18 mi) of roads.

Breakneck Battery

Breakneck Battery is an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located on Ministry of Defence property at the Upper Rock Nature Reserve, north of Lord Airey's Battery. It is one of a dozen batteries in Gibraltar that had 9.2-inch (233.7 mm) guns installed around the turn of the twentieth century. The emplacement features a 9.2-inch Mark X breech-loading gun on a Mark V mounting. The battery was refurbished by 10 Signal Regiment in 2012 and 2016 whilst being on Ceremonial duties whilst the Gibralter Regiment where on exercise and is one of three surviving 9.2-inch gun emplacements at the Upper Ridge of the Rock of Gibraltar. By the late twentieth century, the 9.2-inch guns in Gibraltar, Bermuda, Portugal, South Africa, and Australia were the remaining examples of an emplacement that at one point had been mounted at strategic locations across the British Empire.

Levant Battery

Levant Battery is an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located on Windmill Hill, at the southern end of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve, below observation post Fire Control South. It was named after the Levanter cloud, below which it perched, giving it an unobstructed view. Construction started in 1901 and, by 1903, a 9.2-inch Mark X breech-loading gun had been mounted. The battery was decommissioned in the 1970s and the gun was later removed, to rest in a scrap yard. A community group has been formed to garner support for the gun's recovery and restoration.

Europa Batteries

The Europa Batteries are a group of artillery batteries in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. Facing the North African coast, they are the most southerly batteries in Gibraltar and were built to cover ships approaching from the Mediterranean Sea. They run along the fortified clifftops of Europa Point from Camp Bay on the west side of the Rock of Gibraltar to the Europa Advance Batteries on the east side.

Jones Battery

Jones' Battery is one of the best preserved of the "retired" artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It was named after Sir John Thomas Jones who once controlled the fortifications here.

Europa Pass Batteries

Europa Pass Batteries are a group of artillery batteries in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. They are located north west of Europa Point in the south of Gibraltar, just off Europa Road.

Hardings Battery

Harding's Battery is a restored artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located at Europa Point and includes the Europa Sunken Magazine that is now used as a visitor centre.

Devils Bowling Green Battery

Devil's Bowling Green Battery was an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. In 1859 the battery had two guns that looked over Little Bay. This battery was on the shoreline but it was overlooked by the Buena Vista Battery and the seven guns of the Europa Pass Battery

Eliotts Battery

Eliott's Battery was an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The battery is located in front of the Officer's Barracks at Europa Flats between Prince George's Battery and Woodford's Battery. The battery is named after George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield, Governor of Gibraltar 1777–1790.

Engineer Battery

Engineer Battery was an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar.

Half Way Battery

Half Way Battery was an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The battery was on the coast on the eastern side of the isthmus just north of Europa Point Lighthouse. In 1859 there were two guns.

Lighthouse Battery was an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar.

Prince Georges Battery

Prince George's Battery is an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The battery is located at Europa Flats just north of Eliott's Battery.

Woodfords Battery

Woodford's Battery was an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located at Europa Flats between the Defensible Barracks and the Officer's Barracks and Eliott's Battery.

Fortifications of Gibraltar

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 (55 km) of galleries had been dug in an area of only 2.6 square miles (6.7 km2).

Windmill Hill Batteries

The Windmill Hill Batteries are a series of artillery batteries situated on Windmill Hill, Gibraltar near the south of the peninsula. They are part of the fortifications of Gibraltar. The batteries were originally established by Lt General Edward Cornwallis during his governorship of Gibraltar between 1762–77, built on the site of the old windmills after which the hill was named. The singular Windmill Hill Battery refers to one particular battery almost equidistant between Genista Battery and Europa Advance Battery.

Windmill Hill (Gibraltar)

Windmill Hill or Windmill Hill Flats is one of a pair of plateaux, known collectively as the Southern Plateaux, at the southern end of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located just to the south of the Rock of Gibraltar, which descends steeply to the plateau. Windmill Hill slopes down gently to the south with a height varying from 120 metres (390 ft) at the north end to 90 metres (300 ft) at the south end. It covers an area of about 19 hectares, though about 6 hectares at the north end is built over. The plateau is ringed to the south and east with a line of cliffs which descend to the second of the Southern Plateaux, Europa Flats, which is itself ringed by sea cliffs. Both plateaux are the product of marine erosion during the Quaternary period and subsequent tectonic uplift. Windmill Hill was originally on the shoreline and its cliffs were cut by the action of waves, before the ground was uplifted and the shoreline moved further out to the edge of what is now Europa Flats.

Defensible Barracks

The Defensible Barracks is a fortified barracks located at Europa Flats in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar.

Retrenched Barracks

The Retrenched Barracks was a fortified barracks located at Windmill Hill in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It stands to the north of the southern tip of Gibraltar, Europa Point, which was long felt to be potentially vulnerable to a surprise attack from the sea and was heavily fortified with gun batteries, perimeter walls and scarped cliffs.

References

  1. Fa & Finlayson (2006). The Fortifications of Gibraltar 1068-1945. Osprey Publishing. p. 8. ISBN   978-1-84603-016-1 . Retrieved 1 April 2013.
  2. Ehlen, Judy; Harmon, Russell S. (2001). The environmental legacy of military operations. Geological Society of America. p. 110. ISBN   978-0-8137-4114-7 . Retrieved 1 April 2013.