Here were the remains of the old bastion known as "Old Fortress", protected by a thick wall and work of great strength in which came to store the gunpowder needed for the defense of the city.  In the late eighteenth century, the Captain General of Galicia Carlos Francisco de Croix decided to convert this location, after the destruction in the previous century by the explosion of the powder magazine, in a public garden.

In 1830, at the initiative of the British Government, a stone funeral ark dedicated to General Sir John Moore was erected in this enclosure and in 1834 the governor of the square, Don Francisco de Mazarredo transformed it by building the current garden, an enclosed garden protected from the winds, which is preserved as an evocative romantic garden.

The project, designed by the municipal architect José María de Noya, defines an oval space crossed by a set of radial paths that start from the center, where the tomb is located. The vegetation is distributed in flowerbeds, where there are planted several monumental centennial elms currently included in the catalog of unique trees of Galicia.

The garden still preserves elements of the old fortress as the sentry boxes or the wall and has a spectacular viewpoint overlooking the port of the city.

From the viewpoint, leaning out of the gallery, a magnificent panoramic view of the port and coastal facade of the city can be appreciated.