Gibraltar Museum

The Gibraltar Museum on Bomb House Lane is the right place to start any serious engagement with Gibraltar's layered history. The building itself is part of the attraction: the museum was built around a set of original Moorish bathhouses dating from the 14th century, preserved intact in the basement and among the finest examples of Moorish civilian architecture surviving in the western Mediterranean. Walking down into those vaulted chambers with their horseshoe arches, knowing they were built when Gibraltar was still a Moorish settlement, is one of the more transporting moments you can have in Gibraltar. The collection spans a remarkable range. The Neanderthal remains and artefacts from Gorham's Cave represent some of the most important prehistoric material in Europe, including casts of the Gibraltar skull discovered in 1848, one of the first Neanderthal skulls identified as such by science. The historical collections cover the various sieges of Gibraltar, the British garrison period, the community life of the territory across different eras, and the natural history of the Rock including its geology, flora, and wildlife. The scale model of Gibraltar as it appeared in the late 19th century is a particular highlight. Constructed to a high level of detail, it lets you see the entire defensive system of the Rock as a unified whole in a way that walking individual sites does not. Seeing how the Great Siege Tunnels, the various batteries, the town fortifications, and the harbour defences all related to each other spatially makes subsequent visits to those individual sites considerably more meaningful. Entry prices are modest and the museum is worth the time. Allow at least 90 minutes for a thorough visit, more if you are particularly interested in the specific collections. The museum shop carries a good selection of books on Gibraltar's history and natural history.