Lion Battery is a richly layered historical, social, architectural, aesthetic, scientific and technological landscape. The battery and its historical layering was influenced by significant international events. It is today the site from where Cape Town’s famous noon gun is fired from. Construction started in 1888 and was completed in 1890. By June 1890 both No. 1 and No. 2 emplacements were ready for the mounting of 9 inch RML Guns. All work was done by pick and shovel.
Construction ca. 1890.
Russian expansion in Afghanistan started in the 1870s. This raised concerns that Britain’s domination of the Indian Ocean would be compromised. Concern at the Cape manifested itself in a cartoon in the Lantern on 23 March 1878 with the Russian Bear threatening the maiden labelled ‘Cape Colony’.
Lion Battery ca. 1898
In 1884 Russian troops occupied Merv on the northern border of Afghanistan. A year later they crossed the border, attacked and defeated the Afghan soldiers manning the fortified frontier positions at Pendjeh.
The Imperial Committee on Defence was alarmed that Russia would be in a position to...
