Qualla: Great Siege Tunnels

Great Siege Tunnels: Introduction

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nathan Harig, CC BY-SA 3.0. The problem was a blind angle. In 1782, with French and Spanish forces pressing the Great Siege of Gibraltar into its fourth year, General George Augustus Eliott needed to mount a gun on a rocky spur called The Notch -- a projection on the northeast face of the Rock that commanded ground the existing batteries could not reach. The cliff face was vertical; building a path was impossible. Then Sergeant-Major Henry Ince of the Military Artificers proposed something no one had tried before: dig a tunnel straight through the limestone to reach it.

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Image: Nathan Harig | CC BY-SA 3.0

Great Siege Tunnels: Sledgehammers and Gunpowder

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joe (JX), CC BY-SA 2.0. Construction began on 25 May 1782, and the work was brutal. Thirteen men armed with sledgehammers and crowbars, aided by gunpowder blasts, took five weeks to carve just 82 feet of tunnel through solid Jurassic limestone. Fumes and dust from the blasting made breathing nearly impo...

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Image: Joe (JX) | CC BY-SA 2.0

Great Siege Tunnels: St. George's Hall

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AnonymousUnknown author, Public domain. Work did not always go smoothly. Several tunnel drives veered off course in the latter part of 1782 -- one too deep inside the Rock, another dangerously close to its outer face. But a consistent direction was eventually found, and by the end of the siege four embrasures had been ...

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Image: AnonymousUnknown author | Public domain

Great Siege Tunnels: A Second Life in World War

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Cridland, CC BY 2.0. The Second World War brought another frenzy of tunnelling. The objective this time was staggering: to make the Rock self-sufficient enough to house 16,000 men with a full year's supply of water, food, ammunition, and fuel. The original Great Siege Tunnels were pressed back into s...

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Image: James Cridland | CC BY 2.0

Great Siege Tunnels: Walking Through History

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Malcolm Tredinnick, CC BY 2.0. Today the Great Siege Tunnels are part of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve and rank among Gibraltar's most visited attractions. Visitors enter through a portal flanked by a concrete depiction of General Eliott, a Koehler Depressing Carriage -- the innovative gun mount that allowed c...

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Image: Malcolm Tredinnick | CC BY 2.0