North Bastion, Gibraltar

North Bastion
Part of Fortifications of Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Western façade of the North Bastion
Northern facade of the North Bastion showing its older Spanish and Moorish construction at its base
North Bastion
Coordinates	36°08′45″N 5°21′10″W / 36.145904°N 5.352799°W / 36.145904; -5.352799
Site information
Owner	Government of Gibraltar
Open to the public	Yes
Site history
Built by	Philip II of Spain

The North Bastion, formerly the Baluarte San Pablo (St. Paul's Bastion) was part of the fortifications of Gibraltar, in the north of the peninsula, protecting the town against attack from the mainland of Spain. The bastion was based on the older Giralda tower, built in 1309. The bastion, with a mole that extended into the Bay of Gibraltar to the west and a curtain wall stretching to the Rock of Gibraltar on its east, was a key element in the defenses of the peninsula. After the British took Gibraltar in 1704 they further strengthened these fortifications, flooding the land in front and turning the curtain wall into the Grand Battery.

Today, the bastion is surrounded by reclaimed land to the west and north. Glacis Road runs along the base of the bastion's former glacis. Smith Dorrien Avenue separates the bastion from the curtain wall, which is still largely intact. The bastion is occupied by the Giralda Gardens and a pétanque club. The Government of Gibraltar has plans to rehabilitate the site as part of a plan to develop the old fortifications as tourist attractions.

Gibraltar is accessible by land only along a narrow isthmus overlooked by the Rock, which is too steep to be climbed on its east and north sides. The only entrance to Gibraltar is via the west side of the Rock. A Moorish town occupied the strip of land along the west of the peninsula between the sea and the Rock. The northern approaches to the town were defended by a castle on the slopes of the rock, from which walls built in the Middle Ages ran down to the shore of the Bay of Gibraltar.

A tower was built at the end of the wall by the Spanish after Ferdinand IV of Castile took Gibraltar from the Moors in 1309. The Spanish built an arsenal where the Grand Casemates barracks now stand, and the Giralda tower where the North Bastion would later stand. The tower was built on Ferdinand's orders to protect the dockyard, although improvements to other defenses were neglected. In 1333 the Moors retook Gibraltar after a lengthy siege, and the Spanish under Alfonso XI of Castile were unable to recapture it. Portillo describes the Giralda tower as "a redoubt of very great strength and capable of containing sufficient numbers to defend the place, as was seen in the year 1333 when besieged by King Alfonso." The Spanish finally took Gibraltar in August 1462.