The People of Gibraltar
1333 - La Puerta de Villa Vieja - Mistaken Identity

Of all the older gates of Gibraltar La Puerta de Villa Vieja is one of the least known - it’s hardly ever mentioned. The first time I came across it was when reading Darren Fa and Clive Finlayson’s informative book The Fortifications of Gibraltar 1068 - 1945 which was published in 2006. In their section on the Spanish defences the authors include a well-known 17th century plan of the town by the Spanish engineer Luis Bravo de Acuña (see LINK). One of their many captions used by the authors refers to a certain “Puerta (Gate) de Villa Vieja (formerly “de Granada”)”.

Plan of the town of Gibraltar (1627 - Luis Bravo de Acuña- annotated by Fa and Finlayson - 2006)

My guess is that they took this from another plan by Bravo showing the northern defences of the Rock in which the Spanish Engineer clearly identifies the gate.

Plan of the Northern Defences - and captions (1627 - Louis Bravo de Acuña - detail - adapted)

However, as can be seen quite clearly on a later plan by Fürstenhoff which was published in 1711, Villa Vieja had two main gates - one on the north side facing the mainland which Gibraltar’s late 16th and early 17th century historian Alonso Hernández del Portillo (see LINK) in his Historia de Gibraltar clearly identifies as la Puerta de Granada (see LINK) and another unnamed gate on the south side.

Plan of the older part of town   (1711 - Fürstenhoff)

Also in his Historia Portillo outlines the boundaries of the six main districts of the town of which he was one of the “jurados” or councillors responsible for looking after them.
A el Jurado Alonso Hernández del Portillo con la gente de su Collación que era los de vecinos de la Barcina, Albacar y Villa Vieja, el Baluarte del Canuto, dicho ahora de San Sebastián y Puerta de Mar y de Tierra. 
In other words Portillo’s “constituency” encompassed the entire Qasbah - or Albacar as he called it - Villa Vieja and la Barcina.

A neighbouring district covered by a second Councillor is also described by Portillo as follows:

18th century manuscript of Portillo’s Historia de Gibraltar
A el Jurado Pedro Ruiz Valderrama con la gente de su Collación que es desde la casa de Alfonso García de Ceifa, Regidor a la mano izquierda a la banda de la sierra hasta la puerta de la Villa Vieja con las calles que por allí le tocan por la plazuela y calle que sube a el Castillo, era a la falda de la sierra junto a el castillo.
The key words here are “hasta la puerta de Villa Vieja”. If Portillo was responsible for the entire Villa Vieja then the only possible Villa Vieja gate that could have been included in Valderrama’s constituency was the southern one - la Puerta de Villa Vieja.

Two northern "districts" of the town, Portillo’s on the left, Valderamma on the right, with the Puerta de Villa Viaja common to both  (1627 - Luis Bravo de Acuña - adapted)

Is it possible that Bravo made a mistake? I think it is. The only plan in which he mentions it is one in which his main interest was not la Puerta de Granada but la Puerta de España - which incidentally was known by Portillo - and just about everybody else at the time - as la Puerta de Tierra. He is also more or less unique in calling the Moorish Castle la Torre de la Vela - which is more of a generic term than an actual name. Most other commentators called it either la Torre de Homenaje, la Calahorra or el Castillo Moro.

As regards what happened to it after 1704 (see LINK) the fact that it is never mention leads me to suspect that it was either destroyed by enemy fire during the 13th or 14th Sieges (see LINK) or was dismantled by British engineers during their many 18th century improvements to the Rock’s defences.