Windmill Hill Batteries

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Windmill Hill Battery
Part of Fortifications of Gibraltar
Gibraltar
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Windmill Hill Battery
Coordinates 36°06′47″N5°20′49″W / 36.113038°N 5.347016°W / 36.113038; -5.347016
Type Artillery Battery

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. [1] The singular Windmill Hill Battery refers to one particular battery almost equidistant between Genista Battery and Europa Advance Battery. [2]

The armament of the batteries changed frequently as artillery technology evolved. [1] They lined the escarpment of Windmill Hill, a plateau overlooking the lower ground of Europa Point. The flatness and relative inaccessibility of Windmill Hill made it an ideal place to position artillery to repel attacks coming from the Atlantic or Mediterranean sides of Gibraltar, or to enfilade an amphibious landing. [3]

In 1865, a naming system for the batteries was adopted that saw each of their emplacements described by a letter, from Emplacement A on the west end near Detention Barracks to Emplacement R on the east side by the Retrenched Barracks. The installation of four 6-inch quick-firing guns with a range of 10,000 yards (9,100 m) bearing on Spanish land batteries was proposed in 1901, with another four to be installed on the Mediterranean side. [1] During the Second World War, four 3.7-inch anti-aircraft guns were installed on the batteries and two 9.2-inch howitzers were mounted on Emplacement F. [2]

The batteries are still mostly intact, though some were built upon later and their names altered. [1]

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Levant Battery

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Buffadero Battery

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Europa Batteries

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Windmill Hill (Gibraltar) A pair of plateaux

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.

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.

Victoria Battery

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