Harbour breakwater hosting Gibraltar’s commercial port and key navigation lights.
North Mole is a breakwater in the northern section of Gibraltar Harbour, just north of the east entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. Formerly called the Commercial Mole, it forms part of a trio of breakwaters and hosts the harbour’s commercial port, quays, berths and important harbour lighthouses.
North Mole is a breakwater in the northern section of Gibraltar Harbour, in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, near the east entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula. Formerly known as the Commercial Mole, it was developed as part of a late nineteenth‑ and early twentieth‑century plan by the British Admiralty to create a modern dockyard and large defensive harbour in Gibraltar. It extends the earlier Old Mole and Devil’s Tongue Battery. The structure forms one of three main breakwaters, together with the Detached Mole and South Mole, helping to protect the harbour in combination with the Rock of Gibraltar. It is L‑shaped and includes a Western Arm about 500 metres long, running south toward the Detached Mole. Along the North Mole and its Western Arm there are almost 2,300 metres of quay used for the commercial port, including cruise ships, cargo handling and bunkering, with fifteen berths, six of them on the Western Arm and two on an extension jetty. Two lighthouses operated by the Gibraltar Port Authority stand on the North Mole: the Gibraltar North Mole Lighthouse at the “D” Head and the Gibraltar North Mole Elbow Lighthouse at the “E” Head, both with red lights and ranges of five nautical miles.
