Ben Buckler Gun Battery
Photo and info Waverley Library Local History Collection 2022
Ben Buckler Gun Battery
Weighing 20 tonnes it took 36 horses 3 weeks to transport Ben Buckler’s now buried disappearing gun battery from the Victoria Barracks in 1893.
Now buried beneath grass and sand under the Hugh Bamford Reserve (at the time this area down to the Beach was known as Ben Buckler), this was one of only three similar great guns built in Sydney.
The gun pit was hidden below ground level with ten metres thick reinforced concrete walls. An iron shield covered the pit, and when fired the hydro-pneumatic action popped the gun barrel forward and up through a slot in the shield.
The great gun was kept in regular service, though new batteries at North Head and La Perouse in the 1920s saw the Ben Buckler gun become obsolete. It was eventually retired and buried in the 1950s and mostly forgotten until excavation trench works by the Water Board Authority were carried out for Bondi sewerage treatment works in 1984.
The Ben Buckler gun site survives as a buried archaeological feature and is protected by the Heritage Office.
Photo and info Waverley Library Local History Collection 2022
