Southeast Redoubt of San Francisco Hill

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Memory spaces · Year: 1607 · Authors: Próspero Casola

This battery was built, like its contemporary at the Plataforma, in 1607 by the military engineer Próspero Casola. Both were a contribution to the problem of the lack of fortification in Las Palmas, highlighted eight years earlier by the devastating Dutch invasion that destroyed the city.

Casola proposed installing this redoubt at the southeast end of the San Francisco plateau, about 100 metres above sea level, on the San Nicolás slope descending towards the Guiniguada. It was a strategic point where its crossfire complemented that of the nearby and contemporary Castillo del Rey or San Francisco Castle. 

Its shape appears recorded in the city map by Pedro Agustín del Castillo made in 1686. There we see its diamond-shaped plan, with ashlar masonry walls and an interior with an extensive earthen embankment.

Its deterioration throughout the 18th century was considerable, being repaired in 1791. Little was known about this military infrastructure during the 19th century, except that in 1897 a new installation was completed here, called Battery No. 4 . It was supposed to be part of a much larger military complex that was never carried out.

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