The Signal Hill Battery was constructed in 1892-3 at Watsons Bay

Watsons Bay, New South Wales

Watsons Bay is a harbourside, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Watsons Bay is located 11 km north-east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Woollahra....

 and is adjacent to the Signal Hill Lighthouse

Lighthouse

A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....

 on Old South Head Road

Old South Head Road, Sydney

Old South Head Road is a road in Sydney which goes from the suburb of Bondi Junction to Watsons Bay. It also passes through Bondi, Bondi Beach, North Bondi, Rose Bay and Vaucluse. It is historically significant because its earliest origins can be traced back to the early days of the colony...

.

History and description

The Battery was one of a set of three coastal defence fortifications in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, the other two being the Ben Buckler Gun Battery at Bondi

Bondi

Bondi could refer to:-Places in Australia:* Bondi Beach, New South Wales, a beach and suburb in Sydney, Australia* Bondi Junction, New South Wales, a suburb and commercial centre in Sydney, Australia* Bondi, New South Wales, a suburb in Sydney, Australia...

, and the Shark Point Battery

Shark Point Battery

The Shark Point Battery is a small fort, located on the shores of Sydney Harbour in the eastern Sydney suburb of Vaucluse, New South Wales Australia.-History:...

, or Coogee Battery in Clovelly

Clovelly

Clovelly is a village in the Torridge district of Devon, England. It is a major tourist attraction, famous for its history and beauty, its extremely steep car-free cobbled main street, donkeys, and its location looking out over the Bristol Channel. Thick woods shelter it and render the climate so...

. Each battery consisted of a gun pit that incorporated a BL 9.2 inch (234 mm) Mk VI

BL 9.2 inch gun Mk I - VII

The BL 9.2 inch guns Mk I - Mk VII were a family of early British heavy breechloading naval and coast defence guns in service from 1881 to the end of World War I...

 breech-loading 'counter bombardment' British Armstrong

Armstrong Gun

The term Armstrong Gun was primarily used to describe the unique design of the rifled breech-loading field and heavy guns designed by Sir William Armstrong and manufactured in England from 1855 by the Elswick Ordnance Company and the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich...

 'disappearing' gun

Disappearing gun

A disappearing gun is a type of heavy artillery for which the gun carriage enabled the gun to rotate backwards and down into a pit protected by a wall or a bunker after it was fired...

. The various Australian colonial governments bought nine such guns and an extra barrel before Federation. The Signal Hill gun bore Serial Number 7318 and its barrel survives on public display at the Royal Australian Artillery Museum at North Fort, North Head.

These fortifications were the last link in Sydney’s outer defence perimeter, which was intended to defend Sydney from bombardment by an enemy vessel standing off the coast. The fortifications built in the 1890s around Sydney's eastern suburbs were the culmination of some twenty years of construction of harbour defence installations that reflected the changing policy of the time to meet new technologies, threats and styles of warfare.

The 9.2 inch (234 mm) breech loading gun was fired for the last time in 1933. It was removed and replaced in 1937 by two 6 inch (152 mm) Mk XI guns

BL 6 inch Mk XI naval gun

The BL 6 inch Gun Mark XI was a British 50 calibres high-velocity naval gun which was mounted as primary armament on cruisers and secondary armament on pre-dreadnought battleships.-History:...

 placed in each of two outer gun emplacements; these guns were removed after WWII. The fortification also has an underground complex that runs beneath Old South Head Road. It contains a maze of rooms and corridors including a mess room, elevator shaft and gunpowder magazine

Gunpowder magazine

A gunpowder magazine is a magazine designed to store the explosive gunpowder in wooden barrels for safety. Gunpowder, until superseded, was a universal explosive used in the military and for civil engineering: both applications required storage magazines...

s. The entrance from the street has been tack welded and sealed. A memorial was placed there in November 1992 by the Royal Australian Signal Corps Association on behalf of its members and two plaques were also placed on 30 March 1993 placing the reserve in proper historical perspective.