Historic artillery battery on Gibraltar’s Rock, preserving intact 5.25-inch guns.
Princess Anne’s Battery is an artillery battery on Gibraltar’s Rock, part of the Fortifications of Gibraltar. Built in 1732 and named for Anne, Princess Royal, it later received four QF 5.25-inch dual anti-aircraft and coastal guns. Now decommissioned, it remains the world’s only intact 5.25-inch anti-aircraft gun battery.
Princess Anne’s Battery is an artillery battery in Gibraltar, part of the Fortifications of Gibraltar on the Rock’s north side. It stands on Willis’s Plateau at the northern end of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve, below the Great Siege Tunnels, overlooking Gibraltar Bay, Spain and Gibraltar International Airport. Guns were first mounted there in 1732, when it was known as 3rd Willis’s Battery, and it saw action during the Great Siege of Gibraltar. The position was renamed after Anne, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, eldest daughter of King George II. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the site was modernised. In the Second World War a programme of 5.25‑inch anti‑aircraft guns for Gibraltar led to four Ordnance QF 5.25‑inch Mark II guns being installed at Princess Anne’s Battery. Mounted on 1B mountings, they provided both anti‑aircraft and coastal defence. The battery remained manned into the early 1980s before being decommissioned. Princess Anne’s Battery, together with Princess Amelia’s Battery, is listed with the Gibraltar Heritage Trust. Its refurbished guns form the world’s only intact battery of 5.25‑inch anti‑aircraft guns, although the site has experienced weathering and vandalism. Access is controlled, but visitors can arrange entry through the tourist office.
