Victoria Battery (one of two identically-named batteries named after

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

) was an

artillery battery In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit or multiple systems of artillery, mortar systems, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to f ...

in the

British Overseas Territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

. It was built in the 1840s on top of the earlier Princess of Wales Batteries following a report by Major-General Sir

John Thomas Jones Major General Sir John Thomas Jones, 1st Baronet (25 March 1783 – 26 February 1843) was a British officer in the Royal Engineers who played a leading engineering role in a number of European campaigns of the early nineteenth century. Jones w ...

on Gibraltar's defences. The battery was located on the west side of Gibraltar and was one of a number of "retired" batteries in the territory, constructed to improve the coastal defences between

Europa Point Europa Point ( Spanish and Llanito: Punta de Europa or Punta Europa) is the southernmost point of Gibraltar. Although not the southernmost point of the Iberian Peninsula, Europa Point defines the boundary between the Straits of Gibraltar in th ...

and the town. The battery was completed by 1843 and was nicknamed "Snake in the Grass Battery" due to its irregular undulating shape, measuring about long. It mounted fifteen 32-pdr. guns in 1850, seven of which were replaced in 1863 by 68-pdrs. In 1868 Colonel W.F.D. Jervois wrote a report into the defences of Gibraltar which recommended installing larger rifled muzzle loader (RML) guns. Two 9-inch RMLs were installed in the south flank with iron casemates providing protection. This reduced the space available for the other guns to seven emplacements, of which three were occupied by 80-pdr. RMLs by 1888. The 9-inch RMLs were later replaced by 10-inch RMLs but all of the 80-pdrs. were removed in 1892, followed by the 10-inch guns in 1900. In 1878 a new battery, also called Victoria Battery, was constructed on the right flank of the earlier battery to house a

100 ton gun The 100-ton gun (also known as the Armstrong 100-ton gun) was a British coastal defense gun and is the world's largest black powder cannon. It was a Rifled muzzle loader, rifled muzzle-loading (RML) gun made by Elswick Ordnance Company, the ar ...

. It was completed in 1883 but fell into disuse within only five years, by which time the gun was already obsolete.

References

Artillery battery fortifications in Gibraltar {{fort-stub