San Roque became a town at the beginning of the 18th century, in 1704, when English forces occupied the Rock and city of Gibraltar.
Its origins however stretch back to the Phoenicians, thought to have built Carteya - which could also have been built by the Iberians, reaching its zenith in the Roman era, during the 1st century B.C.
The inhabitants of Gibraltar, who did not want to accept its fall to British forces, abandoned their homes there, and went to live - provisionally as they then thought - in areas near the Rock.
King Philip
V, to whom the inhabitants of Gibraltar continued to be loyal
during the War of the Spanish Succession between the Bourbons and
Austrians, decreed in 1706 that a town council should be convened
and that the "City of Gibraltar in its area" should be
constituted. He subsequently referred to it as "my beloved
city". A sign on the N-340 on its eastern perimeter still
bears the words "Ciudad de Gibraltar en San Roque" -
city of Gibraltar in San Roque, and the area around San Roque and
surrounding La Linea is known as the "campo de
Gibraltar".