John Mackintosh Square

John Mackintosh Square (colloquially The Piazza) is a main square in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. It has been the centre of city life since the 14th century and takes its name from John Mackintosh, a local philanthropist. Notable buildings on John Mackintosh Square include the Parliament Building and the City Hall.

Originally known during the Spanish period as Plaza Mayor (English: Main Square) (according to Alonso Hernández del Portillo in his work titled Historia de la Muy Noble y Más Leal Ciudad de Gibraltar −English: History of the Very Noble and Most Loyal City of Gibraltar) or Gran Plaza (English: Great Square) and afterwards as the Alameda (Spanish for an avenue lined with poplars, not to be confused with the Alameda Gardens), it opened out from the west of the Calle Real (now Main Street). Two buildings separated it from the Line Wall (Gibraltar's main sea wall during the Spanish period, which run from Landport to the foot of the South Mole): a large rectangular building to the west of the square, and a smaller lower building to the south of it, the hospital and chapel of La Santa Misericordia (English: The Holy Mercy).

During the first century of the British period, the square was used for military parades by the garrison and therefore known as the Parade or Grand Parade. In 1704, after the city's capture by an Anglo-Dutch fleet, the British converted the hospital and chapel of La Santa Misericordia into a debtors' prison. In 1753, a survey of Gibraltar went on showing a prison at the western end of the square. After the Great Siege, a colonnaded Georgian guardhouse was built on the southern side of the square. It was the Main Guard, the place from which all the sentries in Gibraltar were posted each evening. Some years later it hosted the Fire Brigade. After the move of the brigade to the new fire station at Victoria Battery in 1938, it became the Rates Office. Today the guardhouse houses the Gibraltar Heritage Trust.

The square was also where military punishment in the form of floggings took place.

The look of the square changed very much during the second decade of the 19th century, when its two most prominent buildings were constructed. In 1817 local merchants raised money by public subscription to construct a building to house the Exchange and Commercial Library. In 1807, Gibraltar merchants had founded a library in Bedlam Court, as they were denied membership of the Garrison Library, it being available only to members of the British garrison in the city (the Garrison Library functioned not only as a library, but as a club, owned and run by and for military officers; civilians were excluded, regardless of their prominence). Ten years later, in 1817, they built themselves a new building on the east side of the square, thus separating it from Main Street. It housed, not only a library, but also an auction room and became the meeting place of local merchants. In 1951, the building was refurbished to host the Legislative Council, which in 1969 become the House of Assembly. Since 2006, the building hosts the Gibraltar Parliament.

About the same time, in 1819, on the opposite side of the square, Aaron Cardozo, a prosperous merchant of Jewish Portuguese descent, built the grandest private mansion ever seen in Gibraltar. The three-storey house dominated the square. It was erected on the site of the old hospital and chapel of La Santa Misericordia and later prison. As a non Protestant, Cardozo was not legally allowed to own property in Gibraltar. However, as he had been a close friend of Horatio Nelson and had supplied his fleet, he was eventually granted a site to build a house in the Alameda on the condition that it be "an ornament" to the square. Its cost was about £40,000. After his death in 1834, his mansion was rented out as a hotel, the Club House Hotel. It was bought in 1874 by Pablo Antonio Larios, a wealthy businessman and banker, Gibraltarian-born and member of a Spanish family, who completely refurbished the building. In 1922, his son Pablo Larios, Marquis of Marzales, sold the building to the Gibraltar colonial authorities, which intended to turn it into a post office. However, it eventually became the premises of the newly formed Gibraltar City Hall which now houses the Mayor's Parlour. The building later underwent multiple modifications (such as the addition of a new storey and an extension to the north) that altered the original symmetry of the building.

In the mid 19th century the name of the square was changed to Commercial Square, being the site of a daily flea market and regular public auctions, as a result of which a Spanish name, Plazuela del Martillo, or more colloquially, El Martillo, was coined ("martillo" being the Spanish word for a gavel). Another popular name at the time was Jews Market. These epithets fell out of usage and the square is typically referred to as The Piazza, an Italian name created following the construction of a paved area in the centre of the square, probably introduced by Gibraltar's Genoese settlers. The name "John Mackintosh Square" was officially adopted in 1940.

In 1571, an aqueduct was built to channel drinking water from the Red Sands in the south district to the city. A fountain at the northwest corner of the square (the steps now called Fountain Ramp, known in Spanish as Callejón de la Fuente, to the north of where the City Hall is today) was supplied by this aqueduct. Although the aqueduct fell into disuse some years later, with the fountain drying up, the fountain head was refurbished in 1694. It was moved to Castle Street in 1887 and remained there until the 1960s. It was eventually re-erected on the Line Wall against Zoca Flank some 20 metres (66 ft) to the northwest of its original location (four lion-headed vents were carved in the low part of the fountain, representing war, pestilence, death and peace).