The Inner Keep and Blind Arches

Ref: HLFP3/700

The Inner Keep—more accurately described as a barbican—constitutes the uppermost and final enclosure of the alcazaba [citadel]. Situated adjacent to the great tower, it was connected to it only by the recess formed along the tower’s southwest-facing façade. The outer wall of this enclosure still survives. Although small, its layout is roughly pentagonal, with a small square tower projecting from its southeast wall. The barbican, positioned below the Calahorra, served to prevent siege engines, scaling ladders, and other assault devices from reaching the main tower itself. In the 16^th century, this barbican was known by the name Gurilanda¹

, which may in turn have been a corruption of the word Giralda [weathervane]. Portillo refers to this Giralda or Gurilanda tower as ‘a citadel in the Italian style’.²

This is believed to be the same tower once thought to have protected the outer gate of the Calahorra and referred to by Portillo as La Giralda:³

“In front of it stands a strong outwork known as La Giralda, with very solid walls and large enough to hold enough men to defend the fortress, as was seen in the year 1333 when King Don Alfonso laid siege to it—though it did him no good, even after building a tower upon it, part of which still remains today and bears his name.”

Portillo’s description indicates that the term Giralda originally referred to the entire barbican, rather than solely to the southeast tower, which may have acquired that name much later. Since the refurbishment of these grounds, it is now possible to walk along the entire adarve [wall walk]; the differences in level are bridged by steps. This final enclosure is the redoubt that the Portillo described as lying in front of the Calahorra and large enough to hold enough people to defend the fortress. At that time, it was known as the Giralda.

Inner keep barbican looking south.

The inner enclosure overlooked by the Giralda tower was until quite recently occupied by modern buildings used first as a military and later the civil prison, which were abandoned after the prison was transferred to Windmill Hill in 2010. Along the inner side of inner enclosure walls—built of rubble masonry with brick bonding courses—brick arches and vaults are detected, indicating that there were once rooms occupying part of this enclosure, while the rest would have been open, forming a courtyard.

These are likely the rooms referred to by Hernández del Portillo when he wrote, around 1600, that:⁴

“The lower part of this castle has many chambers, which are clearly of Moorish construction and was a royal residence for their rulers, and it is truly marvellous to see the Moorish vaults so finely crafted with many elegant interlacing patterns. They remain today just as they were when first completed. It also has halls refurbished in the Spanish style, rebuilt by Don Álvaro de Bazán, father of the first Marquis of Santa Cruz, being the hereditary governor of this castle, as has been mentioned, and with his wife and children living in it.”

One of the vault rooms under the barbican was converted into a lime pit, possibly during the 18^th Century. The lime pit is still extant today.

Inner Keep vaulted rooms.

Lime pit in inner keep vault room.

The Tower of Homage showing the blind arches, David Roberts 1833.

The southwest corner of the courtyard within the inner keep, just below the Giralda tower, was the place of execution where the gallows was located. After the last public execution in Gibraltar in 1862, all other executions were carried out in this inner courtyard. Six hangings are recorded to have been carried out here with three carried out in the 20^th Century. One was Ernest Opisso for murder, and two – Luis López Cordón Cuenca and José Martin Muñoz for sabotage during WWII. Their remains were interred within the castle walls. The last death sentence was passed in 1952, but the execution was not carried out. Capital punishment in Gibraltar was almost abolished in 1965, in line with UK practice, and totally abolished in 2002.

Location of the gallows on the southwest corner of the inner courtyard.

Opisso gravestone referred simply as EO and the date of execution 3.7.31.

Gravestone markers of Cuenca and Muñoz located at the base of the Tower of Homage.

The outer visible sections of the enclosure walls are built of carefully laid masonry, arranged in regular horizontal courses. These alternate between rows of medium-sized stones and rows of smaller, flat stones, both types firmly wedged in place with small stone chocks.

On the exterior of the southwest wall—formerly separating this enclosure from the second—there are two large, blind, pointed horseshoe arches. These rest on masonry jambs with stone projections or imposts carved in a cavetto style. The arches themselves are built of brick with thick mortar joints, while their spandrels are also of brick and outlined by an alfiz formed from two interlaced brick bands. Above their horizontal upper edges are brick lintels.

The second enclosure of the alcazaba, also quite small in size, extend from the walls that start at the base of the Calahorra, the previously described wall with the blind arches that separated it from the first enclosure, and a transverse wall—now lost—though it appears in the plan drawn by Colonel d’Harcourt during the 1704–1705 siege and in later maps. This enclosure, in the form of an irregular trapezoid featured a transverse wall which had a semicircular tower at its centre, and at its northern end there was a bent (dogleg) entrance that connected it with the first enclosure, and which may well have been its only point of access. The semi-circular tower would later house the women’s section of the civil prison.

Colonel D'Harcourt's plan of the castle enclosures, 1704.

1782 Gibraltar Castle fortification (Museo Naval de Madrid).

The Tower of Homage atop the Moorish Castle precinct or Qasbah circa 1870s.

The lowest enclosure known as the Qasbah [fortified citadel] was considerably larger in surface area than either the inner or outer keep. This fortified enclosure was almost rectangular and encompassed a perimeter of 625m, making it the largest citadel in the whole of Al-Andalus.⁵

Its walls and towers date from the Muslim period. A drawing by Luis Bravo de Acuña dated to 1627 shows buildings and orchards within this enclosure, but by the 18th century only piles of ruins remained, on which the British later built barracks. In the mid-1960s the barracks were demolished, and the present Moorish Castle Estate was built. Portillo adds further contemporary detail to Bravo de Acuña’s map stating that: ⁶

“It has gardens inside with fruit trees, vines, and vegetables, and there is woodland with rabbits and possibly deer and other animals. It contains many cisterns, artillery platforms, and is so large that it is only slightly smaller than the city itself”.