Nineteenth-century curtain wall and demi-bastion fortification on Gibraltar’s Line Wall.
W Wellington Front is a fortification forming part of Gibraltar’s Line Wall Curtain along Line Wall Road. Built in 1840 of limestone and concrete by the Government of the United Kingdom, it consists of curtain wall and demi-bastions, is owned by the Government of Gibraltar, unkept yet open to the public.
Wellington Front is a fortification in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, forming a long stretch of curtain wall within the Line Wall Curtain along Line Wall Road. Built in 1840 of limestone and concrete by the Government of the United Kingdom, it stands on the site of an old Moorish city wall later modified by the Spanish and British, and on a site established by the Spanish in 1618. The Moorish wall was considered weak, lacking advanced works, and these problems were addressed in the 1840s when Prince Albert’s Front and Wellington Front were constructed to straighten and strengthen the line of the curtain wall. Wellington Front was named after the Duke of Wellington following advice on Gibraltar’s defences by Major-General John Thomas Jones. It was redesigned to mount heavy guns behind a curtain wall bounded by two demi-bastions built on former Spanish platforms, Plataforma de San Diego in the north and Plataforma de San Francisco in the south, with casemated accommodation for troops. Built largely by convict labour, with 900 convicts housed in the prison ship HMS Owen Glendower, it was later rearmed with various guns including a 12.5‑inch rifled muzzle loader. The fortification is now unkept but open to the public and owned by the Government of Gibraltar.
