North Mole Elbow Battery
This battery was built on the new North Mole as protection against Motor Torpedo Boats and other light fast moving attack vessels. The front of the Battery was built over the old site of the Admiralty Lighthouse and the No.11 Electric Light Emplacement. The new steel lighthouse was immediately to the rear of the battery.
Constructed in 1903 to mount three 12-pdr 18-cwt guns it has now been completely lost to development.
Records from 1910 show that North Mole Elbow Battery mounted two 4-inch Central Pivot Mark III guns on Mark I Mountings. (WO 192/19). The guns were designated as A2 and A3. Both guns covered the Northern entrance to the harbour with magazines and shell stores underground to the rear. It was also required to help protect the entrance the Viaduct, together with Tovey and Princess Caroline’s Batteries (1911).
During World War 2 a 40-mm Bofors gun was mounted here. A twin 6-pdr emplacement was also built here with a further emplacement on the mole head nearby.
The other 12-pdr 18-cwt gun batteries in Gibraltar were at:
- Buena Vista, 2 guns
- Devil’s Gap Battery, 2 guns
- Engineer Battery, 3 guns
- Montague Bastion, 2 guns
- North Mole Elbow Battery, 2 guns
- Upper Union Gallery, 2 guns
The UK National Archives Reference
- WO 78/5288 (With images).
- WO 192/19