Gibraltar Street

We've saved one of the best for last; this is the final post in our Street Names series (for now)!

Picture the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, the exact point where the Mediterranean Sea gives way to the Atlantic Ocean. That's Gibraltar, a British naval base and fortress with a history so fought-over that it's been besieged no fewer than 10 times since the Middle Ages.

When Governor George Gray and Colonel Godfrey Mundy named this Howick street in the 1840s, the Great Siege of Gibraltar was still fresh in living memory.

Here's the scene: during the American Revolutionary War, Spain and France (allies of the newly formed United States) set their sights on capturing Gibraltar from British hands. Spain, in fact, had joined the war for this reason alone. Capturing Gibraltar was the whole point.

On paper, it should have been over quickly. The British garrison had just 7,500 men and 12 gunboats. Ranged against them: 65,000 troops, 47 ships, 10 floating batteries, 7 xebecs and 40 gunboats. A siege that should have lasted weeks instead dragged on for 3 years, 7 months and 2 weeks, until a relief convoy daringly slipped through the Spanish-French blockade and saved the garrison.

The consequences rippled far beyond Gibraltar itself. The siege became a major bargaining chip in the peace talks that ended the American Revolutionary War, and is remembered as the war's last major engagement. Some historians go further, arguing that Britain's stubborn refusal to let go of Gibraltar actually drained resources it desperately needed elsewhere, resources that might have entirely changed the outcome in the American colonies. Imagine how different today's world might look if Britain had simply let Gibraltar go.

It didn't. Gibraltar remains a British territory to this day, home to around 34,000 people. And if you ever visit, you can still walk through "The Galleries," the Great Siege Tunnels, the very underground passages British troops used to hold out for those three extraordinary years.