in finding a scrap metal buyer to remove the gun, so it buried the gun and gave the site over to parkland. The gun's existence was forgotten until it was rediscovered in the mid-1990s by Sydney Water Board engineers planning a new pipeline. In 2010 Waverley Council identified land located adjacent to the battery as a possible site for an industrial depot. The proposal was met with opposition from the community. Heritage listing As at 16 February 2009, the Ben Buckler (Bondi) battery site survives as a unique coastal defence battery of the late-Victorian period. Apart from comprising a rare intact concrete 1890s emplacement specifically developed for the then new "disappearing guns" common to the period, the site retains significant archaeological potential due to the probable retention of the original 9.2-inch naval gun and mounting the only complete 9.2-inch example to exist in Australia. The gun battery was one of three large coastal batteries installed in NSW, and demonstrates a change in technologies associated with the advent of fast, powerful armoured ships capable of bombarding coastal centres such as Sydney. The 1890s fortifications along Sydney's eastern suburbs were the culmination of a long period of harbour defence installations reflecting changing policy to meet new technologies, threats and styles of warfare. Ben Buckler Gun Battery was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 15 December 2006 having satisfied the following criteria. The place is important in demonstrating the course, or pattern, of cultural or natural history in New South Wales. The Ben Buckler gun site is important for its potential to document a phase in the continual evolution of harbour and coastal defences of Sydney. The 1893 emplacement was devised to provide protection from attacking naval vessels by employing state-of-the-art armaments within defensive structures, then available. The site forms a later link to the original defensive policies of colonial Sydney, initially centred on harbour defence batteries, culminating in the significant coastal batteries as armaments allowed for greater range, firepower and pre-emptive attacks on invading forces. The place has a strong or special association with a person, or group of persons, of importance of cultural or natural history of New South Wales's history. The Ben Buckler site retains a close bond to the artillery units of colonial NSW who manned and trained at the site. The battery is a reflection of the policies put in place by the NSW