Buen Aire Battery

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

The Buen Aire battery was located in El Confital, an area of La Isleta that until the appearance of this redoubt was completely unprotected.

Its construction was determined, according to Viera y Clavijo, when in 1742 the general commander of the Canary Islands, Bonito Pignatelli, sailing from Tenerife to Gran Canaria on an inspection of the state of the fortifications on this island, the vessel he was travelling on was threatened by an English corsair ship emerging from the El Confital roadstead, a coast always favourable, given its isolation and jagged shapes, for piracy and plunder. The Spanish ship took a combat position and fired a cannon, which caused the English ship to flee. This event definitively decided that this area of the La Isleta peninsula had to be protected. And so, between 1743 and 1749 this battery was built under the plans of military engineers Riviere and La Pierre.

The construction was located in a prominent place, about 30 metres above sea level. It had a quarter-circle shaped plan and access to the installation was via a ramp ending in a portcullis. At one end of the esplanade was the guardhouse, a square-plan structure capable of housing 12 soldiers; and on the opposite side, a smaller enclosure housed the powder magazine. The kitchen was located next to the parapet. The military complex had five 18-pounder cannons.

At the beginning of the 19th century the Buen Aire battery was already in a lamentable state, with its wall collapsed. In 1944 only slight remains of this construction remained.

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