San Fernando Battery

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Memory spaces · Year: 1749 · Authors: Antonio Riviere, Francisco de La Pierre

This is another of the batteries arising in the mid-18th century from the fortification plan of the general commander of the Canary Islands Andrés Bonito y Pignatelli, in his effort to improve the Archipelago's defences.

The San Fernando battery was established in 1749 at the so-called Punta del Palo of La Isleta, with the aim of providing shelter to vessels seeking the bay of La Luz after rounding the Roquete, a feature located somewhat further north.

The plans were the work of military engineers Antonio de la Riviere and Francisco de la Pierre, technicians who proposed a semicircular esplanade with a guardhouse, powder magazine and cistern. The complex was enclosed by a six-foot-high wall which, joining one end of the defensive wall with the battery building itself, served as containment for the esplanade's land.

By the mid-19th century the battery's state of conservation was lamentable, so its restoration was proposed. A new structure was then built on its gorge. Later it became a salute battery (for salutes, signals and other types of transmissions), a function it performed until the 1930s when, after the construction of the large harbour dock, this function was taken over by a new site in Guanarteme.

Later, the San Fernando battery was integrated into the Lazareto engineers' barracks, and its esplanade was transformed into a garden, the magazine into a powder store and the shed built later into an auxiliary room.

By the mid-20th century the old San Fernando battery had completely disappeared, swallowed up by the successive expansions of the port of La Luz and Las Palmas.

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