Historic artillery battery and modern training centre on Windmill Hill, Gibraltar.
Buffadero Battery was an artillery battery on Windmill Hill in Gibraltar, part of the fortifications of Gibraltar and owned by the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence. In the late nineteenth century it mounted a BL 9.2 inch gun Mk IX–X, intended to command the Straits of Gibraltar.
Buffadero Battery was an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, forming part of the Fortifications of Gibraltar. It is located on Windmill Hill and is associated with an area previously known as Buffadero, the name of a village at the south end of Gibraltar where people lived before the Second World War. According to the Royal Engineers, the name Buffadero may be an anglicised corruption of the Spanish word “bufido”, meaning blowing or snorting, or it may be of Genoese origin, reflecting the employment of many Genoese workmen in Gibraltar. At the end of the nineteenth century Buffadero Battery was equipped with a BL 9.2 inch gun Mk IX–X, one of fourteen such guns installed in Gibraltar. These guns were intended to counter 8 inch guns mounted on cruisers. From Gibraltar, they could fire across the Straits of Gibraltar and hit shipping off the coast of Morocco, allowing Gibraltar to command the Straits. A well-like cave was recorded in close proximity to the battery. Today, the Buffadero Training Centre on the site includes two live firing ranges, an obstacle course, and a mock village that soldiers use to train for urban combat.
