Yesterday I wrote there was a strong chance of frost during the current cold spell. The Observatory website showed the temperature at the Peak had already dropped below zero this morning, so off we went to take a look.

Walking up Old Peak Road I didn't see any signs of frost or ice - til I nearly slipped over on a sheet of ice! Freezing rain had turned the steps up to the Peak Tower into a mini ice rink. As is often the case, once we knew what we were looking for we could see it everywhere. Here's ice coating the wall up to the Peak Tower:

And turning round we could see icicles hanging from the old electric substation building:

We walked on up Mount Austin Road to get higher. Fortunately the ice on the pavement there had already melted, but the plants and buildings still had a good coating. There were more icicles to be seen at the Gatekeeper's Lodge:

And ice on this nearby plant:

I wonder how much damage the ice will do to these leaves and plants?

Next to the site of the governor's residence, the patch of grass was covered with ice. As you can guess, there were plenty of other people there, taking photos and enjoying the novelty.

It seemed that everything had a coating of ice, railings, shrubs, leaves ...

And even whole trees:

I should have taken a video of the trees so you could hear the sound they made. As the wind blew and the trees flexed, they made a crackling sound as their ice casing bent and fractured. Here's a closer look showing patches of ice cracking off:

We retraced our steps back to the Peak Tower, then walked home via Harlech and Hatton Roads. I thought we'd already be too low down the hill to see ice, but we saw these along Harlech Road:

And this last set were much lower down near Pinewood Battery:

We were at the Peak around noon, when the temperature was just creeping back above zero:

Since then it has cooled down again and I can hear rain on the window, so I guess there will be even more ice now.

When I wrote yesterday, Ngong Ping was the coldest place on the Observatory's map. How cold did it get today?

We can't tell - there's a blank where the Ngong Ping reading should be! The graph for Ngong Ping says the station is under maintenance.

Great timing! Hopefully someone at Ngong Ping will take a temperature the old fashioned way, and let us know how cold it gets there.

Regards,

David

PS To any readers on the US East Coast, I apologise for getting this excited about a few mm of ice when you've just had over two feet of snow! In my defence, this is the first time I've seen ice in Hong Kong in the twenty-something years I've lived here.

When: A couple of clues say this photo was taken not long after the end of WW2. First there's the blotchy appearance of the Peninsula Hotel, still wearing the camouflage paint applied during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong.

Second are these masts sticking up from the sea, and what looks like a salvage boat working next to it. The masts belonged to one of the many ships sunk by American bombers during the war.

Other clues for the date are the two Royal Navy C-class destroyers.

Out in the harbour is R34, HMS Cockade [1], then back in the dockyard's tidal basin is its younger sister R76, HMS Consort [2]. HMS Consort wasn't commissioned until March 1946 so this photo must have been taken after that date. I'll guess mid-1946, but if you can give a more accurate date please let us know in the comments below.
 

What: We often see this in post-war photos of the harbour.

I'm pretty sure it is a floating dry dock, but I'd be interested to know where it came from, and what it was used for. We can see the dry dock at the Naval dockyard was already working again as it has a ship in. Then why the extra floating one?

Was it originally part of the preparations for the invasion of Japan that got re-deployed to Hong Kong after the end of the war? You can imagine them having lots of surplus useful equipment that needed a good home.

Or was it part of the salvage operations to recover the wrecks from the harbour? Could they float a wreck high enough to bring it in to the lowered floating dry-dock, then raise the dry-dock to work on the wreck and patch it up?

These are just my guesses, so please put me straight if you know more about it.

Who: Down in the centre foreground, the photo shows two groups that were affected by the war years.

Let's get our bearings first. The bridge at lower-left is where Macdonnell Road crosses the Peak Tram tracks. Follow the tracks beyond the bridge and you'll see there is a dark-coloured section about half way along. That's the bridge where the tram crosses Kennedy Road.

On the downhill side of Kennedy Road are the ruins of a building. From the appearance of the remaining arch it looks to have been burnt down by fire. Before WW2 this was St. George House [3]. Today it's the site of the Freemasons' Zetland Hall [4], replacing their previous building that was destroyed during one of the American bombing raids [5]. I'd wondered how the Kennedy Road plot of land was available for them to build on, and now we know.

Across on the uphill side of Kennedy Road is a bare patch of land that has another mystery. The land belongs to the Union Church [6], and when its congregation was interned in early 1942 the church was still standing. But when they went back to the church after liberation, all they found was a small pile of rubble, and the three dedication plaques from the walls of the old church.

The church's historian says the material from the old church was used by the Japanese in their reconstruction of Government House, but did the Japanese demolish the church or simply make use of rubble from an already destroyed building? My guess is that both St. George House and Union Church were hit in a bombing raid, but again please let us know if you have the facts.

Where: No mystery about this, the card is titled:

H.K. harbour from May Rd.

This was a popular view for postcards. Here's one from the 1920s, showing the spire of the old Union Church building, and St. George House beyond. (You can click any of the photos to see a larger copy that you can zoom into.)

And another from the 1950s after the new Zetland Hall had opened.

Gwulo reference: A360

Trivia: This has been a fiddly photo to restore. It looked good at first glance, but once it was scanned and zoomed, there were lots of blemishes to fix. Here's a close-up of the area around the tidal basin, as it looked after scanning.

Here are the all the fixes.

And the final result!

References:

1. R34, HMS Cockade
2. R76. HMS Consort
3. St George House
4. Zetland Hall on Kennedy Road
5. Zetland Hall on on Zetland Street
6. Union Church

Gung hei fat choy!

Over to a couple of contributors for memories of Chinese New Year in the late 1970s. First a photo from Cliff, showing the old HSBC building, decorated for the occasion:

Then Kirstin, who lived in Stanley at the time, describes the celebrations there:

... all the shops had new red and gold good luck papers on their doors, everything was cleaned and most shops closed for several days except for those selling candy, apples and melon seeds for people to give to others they visited.  All the children were bought new clothes, given red and gold packets with money inside and the village was full of loud lion dances for days.  Competing associations would sponsor lions who would dance past each other to and from the temple, stopping at the Earth God Altar, the Kaifong Association, and the shops.

In the temple to the Sea Goddess all the Taoist gods, including the God of Wealth, who wore a tall white hat upon which were written the Chinese characters, “One glance brings wealth,” were cleaned and all wore red ribbons.  Firecrackers came at midnight of the New Year in spite of a government ban on them, and the noise of the lion dances went on for days as well as special gonging and drumming from the temple.

Best wishes to Cliff, Kirstin, and all Gwulo's readers and contributors for a very happy and healthy year of the monkey.

Regards, David

What: The old KCR Terminus and clocktower is in the foreground. It's the reason I bought the photo, to add this view to the clocktower project.

Where: The photographer is somewhere high up. See those pointy shapes in the foreground? We've seen them before:

They're decorations along the roof of the Peninsula Hotel. We can see a few more of them over on the right of the photo.

So the photographer was standing on the roof of the Peninsula Hotel's east wing.

When: The photo is one of a pair on a stereoview card. Most of the stereoview cards I've bought before were taken between 1895-1905, but this is clearly taken much later.The KCR Terminus didn't open until 1916, and the Peninsula Hotel was completed in 1927, so we must be later than that. But across the harbour, the bell tower of the Roman Catholic Cathedral still has its roof, so it is definitely a pre-war photo. 1927-1941, still a wide range.

One last clue is the tower in the bottom-right corner. You'll need to zoom in to see it, and even then just one edge of it is showing. It probably belonged to the fire station across the road and was used to dry fire hoses.

If you know when that tower was built, or you can spot any other clues that narrow down the date please let us know in the comments below.

Who: The card was published by the Keystone View Company, with these details:

23982 Looking Across the Bay of Kowloon to Hong Kong and Victoria Peak, China

The bay of Kowloon, through which we here see an ocean steamer passing out to sea, separates Kowloon from Hong Kong, visible in the distance across the water. The Hong Kong Bund, lined with modern office buildings, and the business section beyond, lend to this part of the city an aspect Western rather than Eastern. Were it not for the few small junks in the bay we would hardly guess that this is an Oriental city, lying near the southern extremity of the coast of China. Nor does the imposing height of Victoria Peak, in the background, rising 2,000 feet above the sea, suggest the fact that Hong Kong lies, not on a mountainous mainland, but on an island about the size of Staten Island.

Hong Kong is a British crown colony, ceded in 1841. In 1860 the peninsula of Kowloon was added. In 1898 the territory immediately behind Kowloon, together with the adjacent islands, 376 square miles in all, was leased by Great Britain from China for ninety-nine years. The cities in 1923 had a combined population of 681,000. From Hong Kong one may take a tram part way up Victoria Peak and then complete an interesting journey by jinriksha ((rickshaw)) around the crest by the road which we see outlined by a white railing. In this airy height stands the summer residence of the British Governor General, as well as the homes to which many of the 16,000 foreign residents of the city resort in summer to escape the heat of the lower town.

At our feet is the Kowloon customhouse, which houses also the terminus of the railroad, 120 miles long, running to Canton. China still depends chiefly upon canals and natural waterways for transportation, since a total of 7,500 miles of railways is far from adequate for a country 4,200,000 miles in area.

Aha! That answers the question for when it was taken. A search on Google for the card's title leads to the "Catalog of Copyright Entries, 1931 Engravings, Prints Etc. For the Year 1931 New Series Vol 26 Part 4". They'd apply for copyright soon after the photo was taken, dating the photo to around 1930-1.

Trivia: I like the stereoview cards because the photos are usually very sharp. This one isn't as good as the cards from the early 1900's though. I'm not sure if it was just a one-off problem, or if the quality tailed off with later cards.

Gwulo reference: A368

Thank you to Martyn Gregory for sharing these old photos of Hong Kong island with us. They date back to the late 1800s.

You can click on any photo to visit its page. There you can zoom in to see more detail, read any notes about the photo, and add a comment about where and when it was taken.

The first two are from the mid-levels. I've seen this one before:

Below Hospital Road

But the album also had its companion photo on the facing page, giving a rough panorama of the area:

Hospital Road

Down to the shore for the next couple:

Harbourmaster's office

Murray Pier and Central

Before heading up to The Peak:

Peak Tram

Peak Tram

The Peak

Further East are two views of the area around Morrison and Hospital Hills:

Wanchai and Morrison Hill

Wanchai Road

Then in to Happy Valley. It was a popular subject for photos, both the cemetery:

Happy Valley

Happy Valley

Happy Valley

And the racecourse: 

Happy Valley

Happy Valley

Happy Valley

Happy Valley

And fnally a view of one of Jardine's grand houses near today's Causeway Bay::

Jardine's

Thanks again to Martyn for sharing these photos from his private collection.

Martyn is a specialist in 'China Trade' paintings and pictures related to the Far East: that is, works of the period 1700-1900, by both Western artists and Chinese artists who painted 'in the Western manner' for the traders and ships' officers who visited the China coast. You can learn more at: http://www.martyngregory.com/

Regards, David

PS I'm flying to London this evening, so there won't be any newsletter for a couple of weeks til I'm back to Hong Kong next month.

PPS Update - Thanks to Herostratus for pointing out that the first two photos show the area around Hospital Road, not Caine Road as I'd written. I've updated the text.

In 1904, aged just 21, G. Warren Swire became a director of his father’s firm, John Swire & Sons Ltd. Two years later he was sailing east to visit the company’s operations in China. Fortunately for Hong Kong’s record, he was a keen photographer.

Here’s what he saw on that first visit…

1906-7 Dockyard construction

Not surprisingly, he paid most attention to the construction of the company’s Taikoo Dockyard. When finished it would boast the largest dry dock in Hong Kong, and break the Hong Kong & Whampoa Dock Company’s monopoly on large-scale ship-building and repair.

Here’s the great dry dock being built:

The dry dock was the most dramatic sight, but only occupied a small part of the dockyard. Next to the dry dock they built several slips where ships could be hauled up for repair:

While over on the western side of the site, the yards to build new ships were taking shape.

His photos show he also kept an eye on the competition. The Royal Navy were building their own dockyard and dry dock around this time. The Butterfield and Swire offices just happened to overlook that construction site, giving him a firsthand view of progress.

He took this photo of the office building, on the seafront at Central:

And these photos from the rooftop, looking down onto the Royal Navy’s new dry dock:

The Royal Navy’s dry dock was flooded for the first time on Saturday, 15th June, 1907, with the Taikoo dry dock taking its first drink exactly one week later. Despite their significance, neither event is recorded in his collection of photos. Most likely he’d already left Hong Kong by then, escaping the hot summer weather and typhoons to head back to England.

The full Warren Swire Collection covers the first four decades of the twentieth century, and can be viewed online at:
http://hpc.vcea.net/Collection/Warren_Swire_Images

(This post appeared previously on the Visualising China blog.)

The next new feature for Gwulo's maps makes them easier to share. Take a look at the map below, then click these links to see how it changes. Let's start by zooming in to the area around Central Police Station>> hide the markers>> go right back to 1845>> move forward to 1909>> again to 1924>> make the old map transparent>> and finally back to today with the satellite view.

This feature is available for anyone to use: Start by visiting http://gwulo.com/map-of-places then change the map til it shows what you're interested in (here's how to). Next copy the link / url from the top of your web browser. It'll look something like this:

http://gwulo.com/map-of-places#14/22.2749/114.1678/Map_(ESRI)-Markers/100

You can paste it into a page or comment on Gwulo or any other website, include it in an email, etc. Whoever clicks the link will see the map looking just how you'd changed it to look.

The feature also works well on Places. eg here's the page for Green Bank, with the location shown on a modern map: 

http://gwulo.com/node/30942

But as it was one of the very early buildings in Hong Kong, you might want to direct a reader to look at it shown on the 1845 map of the area instead:

http://gwulo.com/node/30942#17/22.28099/114.15496/Map_(ESRI)-1845_HK-Markers/100

I hope you'll find this new feature useful. If you have any questions about using it, please let me know in the comments below.

In February I visited Barbara Anslow for a chat about her memories of moving to Hong Kong in 1927, aged eight years old. Below the recording I've added photos and additional notes.

(E-mail subscribers, if you can't see the player, please view the web version of this page.)

Additional notes:

• 00:27: Barbara as a young girl:

   

• 00:37: Rosyth Dockyard, Scotland - Map, and Crombie village - Map
• 01:27: Chatham Dockyard - Map
• 02:13: Tilbury Docks - Map
• 02:15: The P&O ship, RMS Rawalpindi:

   

• 04:41: c.1928 reclaiming off Wanchai using rocks and soil from Morrison Hill:

   

• 05:18: The Central British School was on Nathan Road at this time. (Later Barbara also calls it "KGV", but that name was only used from the late 1940s onwards.) The old Nathan Road building still exists today, and is now the home of the Antiquities and Monuments Office (AMO). Here's a photo of staff and prefects at the school in 1933:

   

• 05:20: A Kowloon Junior School pupil heading to school by rickshaw in the 1930s:

   

• 06:09: This photo shows the Victoria Junior School in 1969, a later name for the old Garrison School:

   



• 07:08: Here's the view of the nullah below 98, Kennedy Road, with laundry drying on the railings and the Naval Hospital on the hill in the background:

   

• 09:30: Looking out over the Bowen Road Military Hospital to the Naval Dockyard:

   

• 09:40: The Victoria Recreation Club with its swimming baths:
   

   

• 09:57: The chimney of the dockyard's generating station shortly after completion:

   

• 11:15: Launch OC409 at Stonecutters Island for swimming:

   

• 11:55: Notes on playing "chucks": http://gwulo.com/comment/27301#comment-27301
• 13:39: The King Edward Hotel missing its roof after the big fire:

   

• 14:40: Barbara's novel is called "The Young Colonials". Unfortunately it is out of print but occasionally second-hand copies can be bought: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Young-Colonials-Barbara-Anslow/dp/189766611X
• 15:30: Sheerness Dockyard - Map
• 15:40: HMS Ganges - Map

Thanks to Barbara for sharing her stories with us, and for everyone who has shared the photos I've used above to illustrate this talk.

Thanks also to Annemarie Evans who lent me a recorder for this trip and gave me helpful tips on how to get a clearer recording.

If you know someone with interesting stories to tell about old Hong Kong, why not have a chat with them and record & share the conversation? You don't need any special equipment or a big budget:

• most modern phones will record a conversation well enough to share
• if you need to make any adjustments to the sound the Audacity software is free to use
• to share it you can post it to Youtube, also free of charge
• then just leave a link to your video in the comments below.

Where: We're looking south along Nathan Road. Over on the left, just behind that big tree, is the junction with Kimberley Road.

What: What would you say is the main item in this photo? The photographer has titled it: "Telephone Building Kowloon"

It doesn't look much today, but when this photo was taken it was less than five years old, and considered Kowloon's landmark building [1]. If we look at it from the opposite direction we get a better idea of how it towered over the older buildings:

And here's how the newspaper described it in February, 1948 [2]:

Kowloon will see the beginnings of its first skyscraper when the first piles are driven this week for a twelve storey office building at the corner of Nathan and Cameron roads.

To be built by the Hongkong Telephone Company, the finished building will stand 192 feet high, just 24 feet lower than the Hongkong Shanghai Bank, the tallest building in the Colony.

Constructed to house a new telephone exchange which will serve the southern area of Kowloon, the skyscraper will provide space for shops on the ground floor. The first and second storeys will be occupied by offices, in addition to the Telephone exchange, and the remaining floors will be made into flats for Telephone Company employees.

So it was a big deal, not just because of the size of the building, but also as a sign that Hong Kong was moving ahead again after the war years.

Moving back towards the photographer we can see a couple of shop names at the junction with Granville Road:

I haven't noticed the Lucky Bakery before, but this isn't the first time we've seen the Blue Peter:

Who can resist "A Homely Public House Atmosphere" !

Then in the left foreground is the the Princess Theatre, less than a year old [3]. It was a concert venue as well as a cinema, with The Beatles performing there in 1964 [4].

When: The sign advertising the film makes it easy to date the photo:

According to the newspapers, Salome hit the local screens in August 1953 [5]

Who: A rickshaw puller is running towards us, about to be overtaken by the bus. The man on the right waits to let them pass, but the lady in the foreground has as much right to be here as anyone, thankyou very much:

Trivia: One more licence plate for the collection [6]:

References:

1. Telephone Building: http://gwulo.com/node/2828
2. 192-Foot Skyscraper for Kowloon: http://gwulo.com/atom/13269
3. The Princess Theatre: http://gwulo.com/node/3048
4. The Beatles in Hong Kong: http://gwulo.com/atom/17853
5. Salome in Hong Kong: The Gala Premiere is advertised on page 2 of The China Mail, 1953-08-19 
6. Car licence plates: http://gwulo.com/hong-kong-car-registration-licence

If you enjoy the Gwulo website and newsletters, please consider making a small contribution towards the monthly running costs.

The short version:

• Running Gwulo takes 20-30 hours of my time each week, plus a couple of hundred US$ expenses each month.
• It's been ten years since my first post about Hong Kong's history. Gwulo continues to grow but the bills of family life in Hong Kong still need to be paid, so it's time to ask for help.
• A site called Patreon exists to help fund people working on projects like Gwulo, with monthly contributions from US$1 a month.

So, if you're able to help please visit Gwulo's page on Patreon: 
https://www.patreon.com/gwulo

I've written up a longer explanation of the hows & whys below, but if you've got any questions please let me know in the comments and I'll be happy to answer.

Thanks & regards,

David

The long version:

What does a patron of Gwulo do?

A patron is someone who finds value in what Gwulo does, and promises to make a small contribution each month.

How much will a patron pay each month?

It'll depend on how much value you get from Gwulo. Here are some suggestions after asking people what they think Gwulo's value is to them. (All the numbers below are amount-per-month, and in US$, the currency that Patreon uses. I've added HK$ and £ equivalents in brackets.)

• $1 (HK$8 / £0.70)– Reading Gwulo's newsletters is like reading a magazine I buy occasionally.
• $3 (HK$24 / £2.10)– I read Gwulo's newsletters and visit the website. It's like a magazine, but one that I buy each month.
• $5 (HK$39 / £3.50)– Gwulo is more like a society that I'm a member of, where there is a newsletter and also a chance to share questions and information with other members.
• $10 (HK$78 / £7)– I use Gwulo as an online research service. (One example quoted to me was "I think for me a better comparison would be my subscription to Ancestry.co.uk … I have the middle one of this, (not worldwide, my local library provides that) … which costs me about £100 a year. That’s US$ 140 - or, say, $10 a month.")

These are just ideas, you can type in whatever monthly amount you'd like to contribute when you set your monthly contribution (they call it a "pledge") on Patreon.

How to become a patron?

Visit https://www.patreon.com/gwulo and click the big red "Become a patron" button at the top of the page, or choose one of the pre-set Pledge amounts from the list on the right. In either case you'll go to the "Become a patron" screen where you're asked to "Select your reward".

An aside: Patreon insists on using the word "reward". Just think of it as a level of contribution. More about rewards below.

You can change the amount to whatever you like: lucky $2.88? No problem. Type in the amount you want to contribute each month (don't forget it is in US$), and click the Continue button.

You'll be asked to login. You can use your Facebook account, or click the 'sign up' to make an account on Patreon.

Confirm your pledge, and choose to pay either by Paypal or by credit card.

Each month Patreon collects the contributions, from your Paypal or credit card, and sends them to David. Well... after they've taken their fee. So don't be surprised if the total amount pledged doesn't go up by exactly the amount you just pledged.

Can I stay anonymous?

Sure. When you register at Patreon you can choose whatever account name you like. You can also make your profile private, see: https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203913619-How-do-I-make-my...

What if I change my mind and don't want to be a patron any more?

Just login to the Patreon website and delete your pledge. (See the instructions and screenshots at: https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204606205-How-do-I-delete-...)

What do patrons get in return?

You'll have my gratitude for your support!

But the Patreon website mentions rewards...

Yes, Patreon suggests I give out different rewards at each level of contribution. If you look at other pages you'll see things like "Pledge $ABC and I'll send you a new XYZ each month". But then I'd be spending time doing stuff that doesn't help Gwulo get better. I'd rather put my energy into Gwulo, so I'm not using the rewards part of Patreon.

What if I don't become a patron? Does anything change?

Nothing changes. All the content on Gwulo needs to stay freely available to all.

Many people only visit Gwulo a few times for help with a specific question. Others may not be able to afford to make a regular contribution. Others may feel they contribute material to Gwulo, and that's enough for now. That's all fine - whether you're a patron or not, Gwulo works just the same.

Do you plan to use the monthly contributions to fund new projects?

No. You may be thinking of Kickstarter, which is about raising funds for a new project. "Help me raise $100,000, then I'll ... publish a book / make a film / etc."

But Patreon is about providing recurring funding to let people keep doing what they're doing.

So you won't make any changes because of this?

No. I've already written about the plans for the year - see "Gwulo in 2016"– and will continue working on them.

Why are you asking for patrons to contribute?

There are monthly expenses to pay (hosting mainly), and occasional expenses for computer hardware and software. In addition I spend at least 20-30 hours each week working on Gwulo. All the other bills of family life in Hong Kong still have to be paid, so I'm asking for help.

But Gwulo is built on the work of many volunteers, why should you be paid for your time?

Good question!

Gwulo would only be a fraction of the site it is without the contributions of many volunteers. For some of our regular contributors, they've put in hundreds of hours of time over the years. If asking for patrons turns away these contributors, I'll have to think of some other solution instead.

But I think most people realise that there's a lot of time spent behind the scenes keeping Gwulo working and growing - dealing with spam, handling upgrades, adding / coding new features, answering questions by email, keeping the website tidy, etc, etc. I hope that this, plus the fact that becoming a patron is completely optional, will make it acceptable to Gwulo's readers and contributors.

Why are you doing this now?

Gwulo continues to grow and take more time. Family expenses (school fees!) don't get any less. Having turned down offers of support with costs in the early years, recently I've been thinking to ask for help.

Then I heard about Patreon. Though it's still quite new (started in 2013), it shows that people are willing to support creators whose work they value. It appears to work best when those creators already have an established audience, so they're receiving support from people who know their work, not trying to build something new from scratch.

Gwulo has been running for long enough I hope it's clear what it's all about, and whether it has value. So I'm hoping the Patreon model can work.

There's also another reason. It's been ten years since I wrote that first post about the air raid shelters under Kowloon Park. That starts me thinking about the next ten years. Then coincidentally I've been asked about 'sustainability' by several people recently. (Not the recycle and climate change type of sustainability, but how to give Gwulo a long life.) I haven't given it a lot of thought yet, but support from patrons could be part of the answer.

So do you think it'll work?

I'm not sure! Looking through Patreon there are some remarkable successes (A knitting magazine receiving US$18,000 / HK$ 140,000 per issue! https://www.patreon.com/knitty). But there are also plenty that have run for several months and just have one or two patrons (hi mum!).

I'm hopeful, but let's see what happens.

I've just finished adding this 1956 map of Kowloon to our collection. (Show me) <= Click the 'Show me' to update the map, and show the 1956 overlay...

What does it show us about Kowloon in the 1950s?

It's been three years since the big fire at Shek Kip Mei [1], and the move from squatter villages to government housing is in full swing. The first move was to resettlement areas with single-storey "cottages", eg at Ho Man Tin and King's Park (Show me). But by 1956 the government was building newer H-shaped public housing blocks [2]. We can see several at Shek Kip Mei (Show me).

Another big development project is underway at Kai Tak airport [3]. The main map still shows it with the two short, crossed runways (Show me), but in 1956 they were already building the new runway, extending out into the harbour. An inset shows how the airport will look once the new runway is finished (Show me).

The harbour was quite a different place - bigger for starters. Compare the old shoreline of Yau Ma tei (Show me) with today's (Show me) to see how much reclamation there has been. But down in TST the shore is just where it was in 1956, and even three of the five piers from 1956 are still roughly the same size and location today (Show me).

Docks and shipyards are still to be seen around the Kowloon coastline, at Tai Kok Tsui [4] (Show me) and Hung Hom [5] (Show me). And the water was still considered clean enough to swim in, as there's also a bathing beach at Hung Hom (Show me).

I hope you enjoy the map, and that it brings back happy memories if you were in Hong Kong in the 1950s.

If you'd like to get the most from these maps, please watch the short video tutorial. And if you spot anything interesting on the map, please let us know in the comments below.

Finally, many thanks to Andrew Suddaby who supplied the original scanned copy of this map. Unfortunately, he cannot now recall which of his friends in the 367 Association lent the original to him for copying and he apologises to whoever that was for not acknowledging the loan.

Regards,

David

Trivia:

Turning to the map itself, it was drawn at two different scales. The whole peninsula is shown at less detail, then boxes around it show certain built-up areas in more detail. I've cut those more detailed sections from the edges of the map and pasted them onto the main map. You can see the change at Austin Road (Show me). The northern section is what the map of the whole peninsula looked like, then to the south I've pasted in the more detailed drawing of TST.

The tedious part of making the digital overlay is aligning it with the modern map. The 1956 map is roughly accurate, but some places vary considerably from the actual layout on the ground. The worst areas are at the edges of the map, especially around Lai Chi Kok (Show me). See how the old map has to be warped to fit? I guess that the edges of the map were the newly developed areas, and so the least accurately drawn. They're also difficult to align because the area has been so heavily re-developed that the old roads and streams on the 1956 map are no longer visible.

References:

1. Shek Kip Mei fire: http://gwulo.com/node/5846
2. Resettlement blocks: http://gwulo.com/atom/19434
3. Development of Kai Tak airport: http://gwulo.com/kai-tak-airport-history
4. Cosmopolitan Docks: http://gwulo.com/cosmopolitan-docks
5. Hong Kong, Kowloon & Whampoa Dockyards: http://gwulo.com/node/6667

A couple of weekends ago I joined Thomas to explore the WW2 radar station [1] and anti-aircraft gun sites [2] that the Japanese built on Tai Mo Shan. We'd read Tymon Mellor's account of the Japanese wartime radar site there [3], and wanted to see what remains today.

"Tai Mo Shan" is Cantonese for "Big hat mountain", and it certainly had its cloudy hat on the day we visited. Despite the fog we still found lots to see.

Getting there - the walk to the site

Here's the route we took, marked in red on the map [4].

We started at Chuen Lung village (A) on Route Twisk, as it is easy to reach from Tsuen Wan by bus and mini-bus [5]. The walk starts off along a paved, well-maintained road, running through the village and up to the cemetery (B).

From there on it is still a clear path along the old road:

Though the surface condition varies from almost new to completely worn out.

This road was used by British military vehicles in the 1950s, bringing heavy material up to build their own radar station on Tai Mo Shan.

RAF Tai Mo Shan - Project Cabbage Leaf 1958

That means it's a very gentle gradient, so though it's a long route, it's an easy walk.

The road is blocked now, as the Sze Lok Yuen youth hostel (C) was built across it. When you get close to the hostel you'll see a sign pointing to a path that turns right, running uphill. It's labelled to "Route Twisk". The safest option is to follow the sign and take the path uphill. It leads in a small loop around the edge of the hostel's grounds then back to re-join the old road on the other side. Or you can walk on through the grounds, but will have to take a chance as to whether the gates on the far side are locked or not.

Eventually you'll reach the Tai Mo Shan Road, where there's an entry barrier and a small gatehouse (D). Don't worry about the barrier, that's just for vehicles. Walkers are free to pass, as this section of the road is part of the Maclehose Trail.

Carry on up Tai Mo Shan Road, then about half way between Maclehose Trail distance markers 151 & 150, watch for a path that branches off to the right. Take that path towards the Anti-aircraft sites, which I'll explain in more detail below.

Other route options: If you don't fancy such a long walk, there are a couple of other options to get to and from the gatehouse (D). (We walked back out the same way, ending up at Chuen Lung again. The total distance for the day was around 16-19km, depending on whose GPS you believe!). It should be possible to get a taxi up Tai Mo Shan Road to very near the gatehouse. It is certainly possible to stay on bus 51, and get off further along Route Twisk near the junction with Tai Mo Shan Road (A2). From there it's a much shorter walk to the gatehouse, though it's a steeper climb.

Anti-aircraft sites

We'll switch to the government's detailed map of the area [6]:

The map is drawn at such a detailed scale that the rectangular shapes of the three anti-aircraft sites are clearly marked (1, 2, 3). I've also added orange lines to mark the paths that are shown on the countryside series map we used above.

After leaving Tai Mo Shan Road, we're walking along the path shown by the solid line on this map, entering from the top-left. The first two dotted-line paths on the right lead down to a small building, the fire lookout. Ignore that and continue on along the main path, across a stream, then site #3 is ahead on the right.

From site #3 walk straight up the hill and you'll find site #2. (There wasn't a path, but it's short grass and easy enough to walk through. Judging by the sooty marks on my trousers, there has likely been a hill fire in the area not too long ago.) Then from site #2 head west along the contour to find site #1.

The three positions all share a similar layout. They're rectangular areas with a flat floor, each dug in to a hillside. At the back is the vertical face of the cutting, around 2m high, while at the front a dry stone wall of 1 - 1.5m in height has been built to give protection. Small openings at either side of the front wall provide access. Here's a short video showing the layout:

And Thomas giving us an idea of the size of the walls:

You can see just how foggy it was, making any longer-distance views impossible.

When you've finished looking at site #1, walk a bit further along the contour until you hit the path shown by the dotted line. Follow that up the hillside and it will take you to the radar site.

Radar site

Here's the detailed map for this area, marked up the same way. The path up from the AA sites is the dotted line entering from the bottom-left corner.

Site F is the first one we saw. It was dug much deeper than the AA sites, and instead of plain earth and dry-stone walls there is reinforced concrete and brickwork.

WARNING: The back walls of the pits for the radar sites are up to 5 metres deep. Deep enough for a serious fall, so go carefully if you leave the paths around this area.

Here's the view looking in from the front:

Just beyond Thomas you can see two, parallel concrete plinths, each with a row of bolts. Here's a closer view:

So this building would have housed some sort of machinery. The radar site had it's own an electric generator [7], so perhaps this was the generator house?

Return to the path and continue walking until you reach a much bigger path / lane. Turn right, then site I is along on the left side. It has a stone-lined passage leading up to the entrance, and is a larger site than the first one.

Whatever building was here has been demolished, but we could still see the corner of its concrete floor plate,

and what looks like uneven ground is actually piles of bricks, the rubble of the demolished buildings.

In the back-right corner we found one of most widespread remains of the Japanese occupation in Hong Kong - a small tunnel dug into the rock. It's just a short T-shaped tunnel, so nothing much to explore.

Head back out on to the path, and walk along to site E. Again there's a stone-lined passage leading into the excavated area. The passage is full of plants and bushes, which makes it hard to walk along but easy to spot. Look for the change from the hillside grass to these broad-leafed plants and the bushes:

They mark the entrance to the passage. This video follows its path from above, showing how it curves around:

The Japanese usually built their passages and tunnels with a turn to provide protection against blast.

This site doesn't have the piles of brick rubble like site I, but it has a few other interesting features. First it has two tunnels. The entrance to the first one was crumbling, so we left that alone. The second one was in better shape, so I took a look. Here's a video of me stumbling in:

Just a short tunnel again, L-shaped this time. Possibly they'd have been used as air raid shelters, or as stores?

In the video you may have spotted something round on the floor, where the camera dips down as I picked it up. It's a ceramic insulator of some sort, quite possibly part of the Japanese cabling for the radar. Her's how it looked when I picked it up:

And after a wash:

The other curiosity is a low wall across one of the corners, that looks as though it may have held water. Water tank? Fish pond?

Squeeze your way back out through the vegetation:

Then we'll go looking for the missing site. On the map above there doesn't seem to be anything between sites I and E. But look at this satellite view of the same area:

The rectangles of sites I and E are shown at either side, but there's also a smaller rectangle clearly visible in the middle, site K, that the mapping men have missed. It's a shallower excavation than the other two, with a stone wall along the front and plenty of brick debris inside it. From site E you can spot it by the bushes that are growing out from it. (As you walk there from site E, just watch your step. There's a sharply cut trench along the ground just here. It's not big enough for a person, so was possibly dug for cables?)

Site A was the next one we visited. It's an L-shaped pit, with stone walls on several sides. Inside the pit is the ruin of a rectangular building, clearly visible on the map and satellite views.

The walls are a mix of brick and reinforced concrete, built thick enough to provide some protection against explosions nearby.

Site J is nearby. Nothing special to report, just another excavated area with a dry stone wall at the front. There's a small square pit between these two sites.

The next pair are sites B and C. Site C is unusually shallow, just a slight depression in the ground. It has this smoothly finished concrete slab on the ground:

Site B, on the opposite slope, is much larger and deeper, with plenty of brick debris again. Here's Thomas heading into the entrance passageway. You can see the walls are over head height:

Inside the passage:

This video looks from the end of the passage into the excavated area, to give an idea of the size of the area and the height of the back walls.

On to site H. It has the standard dry stone wall at front and cut into the hillside at the back, but its curiosity is a pair of slabs in the back corner. One is in the floor and one is upright above it, embedded into the rear wall of the excavation.

At first glance it's the entrance to a tunnel, but there isn't any opening. No idea what it was for...

A quick visit to site G: mid-sized, not very deep.

The last three sites we've labeled D1, D2, and D3. They show up clearly on the map, but the satellite view is even better:

As well as the three rectangular excavated areas, it also shows the passages that connected them. See those dark lines where vegetation now fills the passages?

The main entrance leaves the path just to the left of the light-coloured patch on the photo. This video shows where the passage meets the T-junction then branches left and right to D1 and D2.

There were several of those thorny vines in the way, so we retreated then found another way in at D3. (Gloves and a pair of garden cutters are good tools to bring along on an outing like this.)

D2, the middle area, is the largest of these three. On the ground of D2, near the passage towards D3 is the entrance to a drain.

And where the passage drops a level down to D3, there used to be concrete steps.

It's clear that a lot of work went into building this radar site, not just all the physical labour for excavation, but also the attention to detail.

Rob found this confirmation of the work involved in an intelligence report dated 14th Sept 1945 [5]:

Tai Mo Shan: An Air Intelligence Unit (radio location) 113 strong is at the top of the mountain. The road leading to it is nearly 9 miles long. Construction started in Jan 1944 and with camp buildings was finished in Aug 1944. 3 Coy's of Japanese Engineers from Canton with 800 coolies were employed. The rains necessitate frequent repair as the road is not surfaced.

The main installation of 1 Transmitter and 4 receivers is serviceable. Each receiver searches a 90° arc. The power is supplied by a 75W 200 Volt AC diesel driven generator.

Summary

It was a good outing, with more to see than I expected. Apart from the excavations and ruins of buildings, there is also a chance we'd seen some of the equipment that was used there - the little ceramic insulator shown above and this, much larger, glass & iron insulator:

The one disappointment was the foggy weather. I'd hoped we could take photos that matched up with the 1945 views of the site, and do a then & now comparison. The poor visibility means that'll have to wait for another visit.

It'll be good to hear from anyone who can add any memories of the site. I'm especially interested to hear from anyone who worked at Tai Mo Shan in the 1940s-60s. Do you remember visiting this site? What condition was it in then? Were there any stories told about what it was used for?

Finally, I wonder if anyone has relatives who were involved in the construction of the site in 1944? I guess the Japanese would have gathered workers from Kowloon and the New Territories. It would be great to hear their stories too.

Regards, David

Tips if you're visiting

• Maps: The "Northwest New Territories" sheet from the Countryside Maps series is the one that covers this area, and is good to find your way there. Then to find your way around the site the map and satellite views at www.map.gov.hk are very useful.
• GPS: The MyMapHK application for Android and iPhone is very useful too, as it shows those same map and satellite views, and can match them to your current location via GPS. It was a great help when we were looking for the AA site, as we could "see" where we were, even though the actual landscape was hidden by fog. BUT, don't rely on it as it needs a live data connection to work, and many times we were out of range of mobile operator's data services.
• Finding sites: Look out for changes in vegetation - a dark green patch among the short grass, or a clump of trees. Also look for any man-made dry-stone walls, as they were the clues that led us to several of the sites.
• Take care: Many of the back faces of the excavated areas are several metres deep, so a fall could cause serious injury. Always enter from the low, front entrances, and take care not to fall in if you're walking the slopes looking for the excavated areas.

References:

1. WW2 Japanese Radar Station on Tai Mo Shan, http://gwulo.com/node/30456
2. WW2 Japanese Anti-aircraft gun sites at Tai Mo Shan, http://gwulo.com/node/31928
3. "Japanese Radar Station on Tai Mo Shan", by Tymon Mellor. http://industrialhistoryhk.org/japanese-radar-station-tai-shan/
4. The "Northwest New Territories" sheet from the Countryside Maps series is the one that covers this area.
5. KMB bus route 51 (I can't see a way to link to their page, but visit http://kmb.hk/en/services/search.html and search for route 51), and the Green Minibus route 80 (http://www.16seats.net/eng/gmb/gn_80.html) both run from Tsuen Wan to Chuen Lung village.
6. Detailed maps of Hong Kong are available online at www.map.gov.hk
7. Intelligence Report dated 14th Sept 1945, original held in UK National Archive, their ref: WO 208/750A

Where: There's a shop sign for "Lee Jim Kee / 李占記" that shows the address:

Although the text is a bit fuzzy, we can see it's a single digit address on Bonham Strand East. That's close to the junction with Queen's Road East.

Lee Jim Kee was a well known watch company, with its headquarters at 9, Bonham Strand and branches in Canton and Macau [1]. They sold international brands like Rolex, but also sold watches under their own company's name. It would be great to see a picture if anyone owns one of their watches.

Who: In front of the shop a group of children are deep in discussion: "Should we go for the cheaper shop brand, or stick with the Rolex?"

People are hurrying along, some on foot, some in rickshaws,

And all under the watchful eye of the local policeman.

What: We've seen this type of policeman's shelter before. The raised platform gave him a better view, and in theory the small roof gave some protection from the sun & rain. Here's one at the bottom of Garden Road, and another at the top of Pedder Street.

We've also seen the policeman's black & white striped baton before, held by the policeman with his back to us in this Pedder Street photo:

When: The photos we have of the small shelters for traffic police date to the 1920s and 1930s. I'm interested to hear if you have more exact dates for when they were in use.

Similarly for the striped baton, when and how were they used?

Last there's the policeman's uniform. The first generation of Chinese policeman's uniform looked like this (the colours aren't accurate, but it shows the design):

The governor, F H May had written to the UK in 1914, requesting permission to make changes to the uniform. No doubt WW1 meant the request was put on hold, but it was brought up again in 1919 [2] by the then governor, R E Stubbs.

I don't see the introduction of new uniforms mentioned in the annual "Police and Fire Brigade" reports for 1919-21. But a letter to the Hongkong Telegraph in November 1919 complaining about "the latest evolution in the dress of Chinese Police Sergeants" [3] suggests the change was already underway by then.

I'll date this photo to the mid-1920s, but if you can be more accurate please let us know.

Regards, David

Gwulo reference: A197

References:

1. Discussion about the history of Lee Jim Kee:
   http://www.allreadable.com/bdd3I7A7
2. Correspondence about HK Police uniforms in the UK National Archive, see page 119 and following of document ref: CO 129/456
3. Letter titled "Police Uniform" on page 8 of the Friday, 7 Nov 1919 issue of the Hongkong Telegraph.

In part 1, Barbara talked about her first visit to Hong Kong as a young girl, living here from 1927 to 1929.

In this part 2, Barbara tells us about returning to Hong Kong in 1938, then being evacuated with her mother and sisters in 1940. While in transit in the Philippines, they received news that her father had died suddenly, which meant they all returned to Hong Kong. They decided to stay here, and so were caught up in the Japanese invasion of December 1941, and the internment that followed.

But back to 1938 - the family were following her father who'd been posted to the Royal Navy's dockyard in Hong Kong. What brought him back to Hong Kong again? (Scroll down for additional notes and photos.)

(E-mail subscribers, if you can't play the recording, please visit the web version of this page.)

Additional notes:

• 01:10: The view of Queen's Road (today's Queensway) outside the Navy flats where Barbara lived with her family:

   

• 03:00: USS Panay Incident, 12 December 1937
• 03:50: Barbara has sent us an extract from a letter she wrote while in the Philippines, telling a friend about the evacuation from Hong Kong in 1940.
• 06:20: Auxiliary nurses, the ANS.
• 07:45: Read Mabel's own account of becoming a nurse during the fighting, and nursing at the Bowen Road Military Hospital.
• 09:45: Barbara's diary entry for 17 June 1942 describes Mabel's arrival at the Stanley Interment Camp: "While I was working in the hosp. I heard from one of the nurses that a young girl had arrived to join her mother, with others from the Bowen Rd. Hosp., so careered up to the blocks. Outside the Dutch Block a business-like person was directing unloading operations on the lorry - Mabel, wearing unfamiliar clothes: competent, capable, independent ..."​

Two rounds of reclamation ago, the Star Ferry pier was at the junction of Connaught Road and Ice House Street. Here's how it looked when it opened in 1912:

It was a popular subject, so we've built up a sequence of 30+ photos showing it through to the 1950s. Let's see how it changed over the years.

Change #1 - Dome-topped clock tower added, 19??

This view is cropped from a larger photo, which shows the Central Fire Station under construction. That dates the photo to around 1925.

Change #2 - Dome removed from clock tower, 19??

We've got a couple of photos where the railings are still in place, but the dome has gone from the top of the clock tower. They're just dated to the 1920s, so there's a small chance the clock tower was flat-topped first and then had the dome added. But given that the later photos definitely show a flat-topped tower, I think this is the right order.

Change #3 - Railings removed, vertical signboards added with "Kowloon Ferry" in black text on white background, 19??

I can imagine the branding consultants telling them they needed to keep up with the times, and go with cleaner, more modern look!

The clock face looks different from the earlier photos, so I wonder if the clock was changed too?

This photo was taken by photographer Harrison Forman, which dates the photo to 1940-1.

Change #4 - Text changed to white on black, Star Ferry added, 194?

Soon after the end of WW2, the text colour was changed and they add The "Star" Ferry Co. Ltd to the existing Kowloon Ferry signs. 

This photo was taken in 1954, so not long before the new pier opened at Edinburgh Place in 1957.

You can see the full list of photos that show this pier at: http://gwulo.com/node/7017/photos

As you look down the list, you'll see that our photo sequence has some out of order, especially for the earlier years. There are two ways we can fix that, either by knowing the date when a change was made, or by identifying the correct date a photo was taken. If you can help with either of those, please leave a comment below. Then once we've got the dates confirmed for the changes, we can use them in future to help date other photos.

Regards,

David

Trivia:

If those old photos seem familiar...

... it's because the modern Star Ferry terminal is built to a similar design:

Finally, if you're a Star Ferry fan, here's another sequence of photos showing the next generation pier at Edinburgh Place: http://gwulo.com/node/2537/photos

The highlight of his first visit was the construction of the new Taikoo dockyard [1] at Quarry Bay. On this next visit, four years later, he could show it as a going concern.

He took several photos of ships under repair, both up on the slips and down in the dry dock:

He also visited the ship-building yard to watch a new ship being launched:

He didn’t note the name of the ship, but the title of the photo below says they’re gathered at the launch of the “Circe”:

Here’s how the following day's newspaper reported it:

LAUNCH AT TAIKOO DOCKYARD.

Yesterday the Taikoo Dockyard and Engineering Company launched a handsomely modelled steel screw steamer for Messrs. Alfred Holt & Company's Singapore and Delhi trade. The vessel is of the awning deck type, the principal dimensions being 200 feet long overall, 31‘-6" beam, and 21'-6” deep to the awning deck. Accommodation for a number of passengers is fitted up amidships, with dining saloon. The officers’ and engineers’ rooms are situated aft in a steel house on the awning deck; the crew being berthed forward, and the petty officers aft. The 'tween decks are arranged for carrying steerage passengers, and open spaces are fitted up for the carriage of cattle. Triple-expansion engines of the builders' own make will be installed, steam being supplied from a large single-ended boiler, capable of driving the vessel at a speed of 12 knots. Electric light is fitted throughout. The gross tonnage of the vessel is about 800. As the vessel left the ways she was gracefully christened Circe by Mrs. Swire.

Page 4, The Hong Kong Telegraph, 1912-03-06.

If any maritime experts are reading, does the description of the Circe match the ship shown being launched?

Circe was built for Alfred Holt & Co., a company that worked closely with Swire’s. Other photos from this visit show their Holt’s Wharf [2], across the harbour in Tsim Sha Tsui:

Back to the Taikoo dockyard, and my favourite photo from this visit:

It’s a rare view of the cable car [3] that ran up here to Quarry Gap, the pass between Mount Parker and Mount Butler. Old maps show the pass named Sanatorium Gap, which explains the need for a cable car: up at the Gap, situated to catch the cool breeze in summer, stood the Taikoo Sanatorium [4]. Warren shows us the Sanatorium building, and its view out over the Tai Tam reservoir [5]:

He took several other photos looking out from a high vantage point:

They’re titled ‘View westwards from Taikoo’ and ‘View eastwards from Taikoo’, which doesn’t make sense at first. Then the penny drops, and we realise that Taikoo doesn’t mean the dockyard, but the house named ‘Taikoo’ [6], up on the Peak!

We’ll finish this visit with a couple of his photos of an even grander building:

They show construction work at the new Hong Kong University [7], partly funded by a donation from Swire’s.

(This post appeared previously on the Visualising China blog.)

Further reading:

• Photos from Warren Swire’s first visit to Hong Kong, 1906-7: http://gwulo.com/node/31140
• The full Warren Swire Collection covers the first four decades of the twentieth century: http://hpc.vcea.net/Collection/Warren_Swire_Images

References:

1. Taikoo dockyard
2. Holt’s Wharf
3. Taikoo ropeway (cable car)
4. Taikoo sanatorium
5. Tai Tam reservoir
6. 'Tai Koo' on the Peak
7. Hong Kong University

The latest addition to our overlaid maps is this 1866 map of Hong Kong's north shore, originally printed in the 1867 edition of The Chronicle and Directory for China, Japan, & the Philippines.

Thank you to Peter Crush for compiling and sending in this digital copy. Here's how it looks overlaid onto a modern map:(subscribers, please click here to view the web version)

We can compare it with the 1845 map to see how quickly the city expanded. In 1845 the built-up area stopped near Possession Point (click show me to update the map), roughly the western end of today's Hollywood Road. But by 1866 Sai Ying Pun and Shek Tong Tsui have been developed, with the built-up area extending west to the end of today's Queen's Road West (show me).

Looking east from Possession Point, and there's more expansion to see. The southern boundary in 1845 was Hollywood Road (show me), but by 1866 the city has climbed up the hillside. Several new roads have been built and the new southern boundary is Robinson Road (show me).

Despite their differences, both the 1845 and 1866 maps share something that's missing from modern maps - they show the streams that ran down the hillside. For a good example, look for the wiggly line running down the centre of this section of the map (show me). It first meets Bonham Road, then flows on downhill under Pokfulam Road, Third Street and Queen's Road before reaching the harbour at Des Voeux Road. Today the stream runs in pipes underground, hidden away from the modern mapmaker. This one has left a hint to its existence though, as today's map shows a street follows the old stream's route. Its name is just visible at the top of the map: Water Street! (show me)

There's another example over at today's Caine Road Garden, where three streams converge on a rectangular box marked "J" (show me - the map was drawn with south at the top, so the J is upside-down). The map's index shows J is "Water Tank". Though the Pokfulam Reservoir was already built by 1866, streams and wells were still an important source of water.

Over towards Central, a couple of small squares on the map catch my eye. They mark two gifts to the city. The first stood at the southern end of Pedder Street (show me). It's the Pedder Street Clocktower [1], built four years earlier in 1862.

Further east along Queen's Road, we have the building marked 29, with a diamond shape below it (show me). The index lists 29 as "New City Hall: Public Fountain Opposite". The map maker was optimistic in noting the site of the City Hall [2], as it wouldn't open for another three years. The fountain was already complete though, and was known as Dent's fountain [3]. Here's a view of the fountain, with City Hall behind:

Moving east, we come to today's Admiralty district (show me). In 1866 there was only a single road, Queen's Road, for all east-west traffic across this part of the island. That was a potential bottleneck, so another road was needed. A tentative route for the new road, today's Kennedy Road, is shown on the map by dotted lines.

This section of Queen's Road had a couple of sharp bends, that would be notorious accident black-spots when motor cars arrived. An 1860s photos gives a clear view of the bends, and a large building beyond. The building is marked "21" on the map, described as "Military Hospital" [4].

We'll finish off at East Point, near the eastern edge of the map (show me). Item 34 is shown as "Messrs Jardine, Matheson & Co.", and item 38 as "Mint". We're lucky to catch sight of the Mint, as it was only in operation from 1866 til 1868. The Mint had been built on newly reclaimed land, and the map-maker must have believed that a much larger reclamation was planned, as his dotted lines show streets criss-crossing the bay. In fact it would remain under water for another 80 years or so, finally reclaimed in the 1950s as Victoria Park.

If you can spot any other interesting developments, please let us know in the comments below.

Regards, David

References:

1. Pedder Street Clocktower
2. City Hall (first generation)
3. Dent's Fountain
4. Military Hospital on Queen's Road
5. Hong Kong Mint

Where: No problem identifying this one, we're looking at Central from the harbour, with the HSBC building in the centre.

When: Down in the foreground there's reclamation underway, with piles poking out from the sea at either side of the photo.

The 1955 Hong Kong Annual Report describes it like this:

The reclamation, begun in 1951, of nine acres of land in a central position on the Victoria waterfront was completed in August. This reclamation will provide a site for a City Hall, as well as a concourse area for a large new passenger ferry pier ((ie the new Star Ferry pier)).

This looks like early days in the reclamation project, so I'll guess this photo was taken in 1951.

Who: Queen's Building was home to a wide range of companies, many connected with the harbour: 

The biggest name is COOKS, the travel company. (Their harbour connection was that in the 1950s, most visitors to Hong Kong would arrive by sea). Cooks are still in business today, now using their more formal name, Thomas Cook.

Above Cooks is a sign for the Mollers shipping line, then over on the right are the Messageries Maritimes, another shipping line. As the name suggests, they were a French company. Several of their routes called in to Hong Kong:

Other company names shown are:

• Everett Steamship Corporation S/A
• Anerican Mail Line Ltd
• The East Asiatic Co Ltd
• Thoresen & Co Ltd

I've only found Cooks and Thoresen still operating under their original name. The other companies have either gone out of business, or merged and changed their name.

What: As this is a very clear photo, let's look beyond the buildings on the seafront, and take a walk from Central up to Barker Road on the Peak. Here's a rough outline of the route:

A few years ago the government started promoting it as "The Central Green Trail". I can't find any mention of it on the government's websites any more, but all the paths are still there. It starts off from the lower Peak Tram Terminus, and follows Tramway Path up til you reach Magazine Gap Road. (We can't see that section in the photo, as it is hidden behind HSBC.)

Cross Magazine Gap Road and head up Brewin Path til you meet Clovelly Path, then continue up to May Road. The Brewin / Clovelly Path section is the first one shown on the photo, zig-zagging right then left. The triangle of land between the tram line and these two paths is empty in the photo, but it's all built on now. There's a low-rise building on the corner and when I've walked past I've wondered how old it is: obviously not older than 1951!

Above May Road on the right of the tram track there's a group of buildings we've seen before:

Left-to-right they're named Ava House, Ava Mansions, and Branksome Towers. They're all gone now.

At May Road we turn left, cross the bridge over the tram track, then join Chatham Path to head uphill again. The path runs behind a group of garages and an apartment called Gladdon, dating back to c.1929, You can just see them on the left of the bridge in the old photo:

Here's how they look today:

Next the path cuts between two buildings:

The larger, downhill building is Thorpe Manor, today the site of The Mayfair. Above that is #1, Chatham Path. It was built as a private residence, housed the Chatham English School in the 1950s-70s, and is now a private residence again. It's a lovely old house (built in 1927), but there isn't any road access so you'd better enjoy walking up & down hill if you plan to live there!

Keep on climbing til you're level with this building:

The old building, Inverdruie, is long gone, in fact the site has just been re-developed a second time, but keep an eye out on your right. A side path to the building is still there, together with a sign for "No 457". That was its old address, "457, The Peak":

We're nearly at the top now. A few more twists and turns and you'll reach this imposing stone wall:

All that work to build a tennis court! In the old photo it's the light-coloured strip on the right of the path.

The building shown above the court is also still standing. Originally it was the Maternity Block of the Victoria Hospital, but now it has been converted to become the government quarters named Victoria Flats.

I recommend this walk as an interesting climb up the Peak, BUT to avoid any accidents it's best to wait for the dry winter weather. In the damp summer weather it really is a green trail, as sections of the path get covered with a slippery, green growth.

As always, if you can add any memories of the places and companies mentioned here, or correct any mistakes I've made, please let us know in the comments below.

Regards, David

And in particular four of its foundation stones. This first one lives on a small island, 30+ miles southwest from Hong Kong:

So not exactly Hong Kong, but it's definitely part of Hong Kong's history. Any guesses where it might be?

See if the inscription helps:

This
Stone Was Laid
By
His Excellency
Francis Fleming C.M.G.
Officer Administering the Government
Hong Kong on 1 Sept 1890

If not, this postcard of the finished building will make it clear:

It's the Gap Rock Lighthouse (Notes & satellite view / Photos). It stands on a Chinese island but was built by, and until 1941 operated by, the British government.

The text on the stone gives us a couple of glimpses into history. The most obvious is the date that the stone was laid, giving us a rough idea of when construction began. The other is the name shown, in this case Francis Fleming. The Governor was the usual candidate for laying an important building's foundation stone. But Fleming's title above, "Officer Administering the Government", lets us know that the Governor (Des Voeux) was out of town. Fleming, the Colonial Secretary, was in charge til Des Voeux returned.

We can often find more detail about the building and day's events by reading the newspapers from a day or two after the ceremony. In this case, the next day's issue of the Hong Kong Daily Press gives a full account on page 2. Here are a few extracts, starting with the island and its building:

The well known rock on which the lighthouse is to be erected is a small sterile island, about 400 foot in length, 34 miles to the south west of Hongkong. The main building will be in three storeys, or to be more correct, a basement and two storeys. On the basement is a large tank, capable of holding 12,000 gallons of water, The necessity of this is at once apparent, as owing to the difficulty of reaching the rock at all times and the impossibility in bad weather of reaching it at all, frequently for long periods one of the first things that it was necessary to secure was a large supply of water for the use of those living there. By means of pipes the water to fill the tank will be collected from the roof of the building, which is of asphalte, and further, the supply from the tank will probably be supplemented by a condenser. The floor above will contain two living rooms for the lightkeeper, a workshop, and a kitchen. On the next floor will be two more living rooms and coolie quarters. The building will be in two blocks, connected by a stairway, this method of construction being necessitated by the conformation of the rock, the building being as far as possible adapted to the outline. On the top of the main building will be the lantern, the centre being 140 feet above the mean sea level, this being a few feet higher than was originally intended when the plans were first drawn. Under ordinary conditions the light will be visible at a distance of 21 nautical miles and under very favourable conditions some distance further.

When the stone-laying party reached Gap Rock, the landing was more difficult than expected. They ended up being winched up on to the island by a derrick like this:

Owing to the heavy sea that was running it was found to be impossible to effect a landing at the usual side of the rock, where a road has been cut to its summit. The party were therefore landed in small sections, first by means of one of the steamer's boats which took them to small cove, and from there they were hoisted in couples by means of a derrick on to a landing place about half way up the Rock.

This method of landing occupied considerable time and afforded much amusement to all concerned. It was one of those instances where a man failed to he a hero, not only to his own valet, but even to the boatmen and coolies, and officialdom for once appeared helplessly human. A Chief Justice, a General, a Governor even, could scarcely, with the best intentions, preserve a dignified appearance while being hauled up by a crane like a bale of goods and remaining occasionally for a few seconds suspended between earth and heaven like Mahomet's coffin. The landing being at last effected, the party proceeded to the summit of the Rock, where the ceremony of laying the foundation stone was to be performed.

The day's job done, it was back to the boat for a late lunch:

The steamer cast off from her buoy about 3 p.m. An excellent tiffin was served en route Hongkong and the steamer arrived off Murray Pier, shortly after 6p.m. a most pleasant trip having been made by all on board.

Sounds like it was all a good excuse for a pleasant day away from the office!

Thanks to Professor SW Poon at HKU for sharing these photos from his recent visits to research the Gap Rock lighthouse.

The lighthouse is still standing today, so this foundation stone is still part of its original building. Back in Hong Kong, the pressure to re-develop is much greater, so that the foundation stone is often all that's left of an older building. Take our next stone, up on Barker Road at the Peak:

Victoria Hospital
For Women And Children
This Stone Was Laid By
H.E. Sir William Robinson K.C.M.G.
Governor
To Commemorate The Completion Of The 60th Year Of The Reign Of
Her Most Gracious Majesty
Queen Victoria

As the inscription suggests, it is on the site of the old Victoria Hospital for Women and Children (Notes & map / Photos).

Apart from the stone and the newspaper reports, another memory of that day still exists. The person who laid a foundation stone was often presented with a silver trowel as a memento. Liz Chater sent this photo of the silver trowel that Paul Chater presented to Governor Robinson when he laid the Victoria Hospital foundation stone shown above.

Stone number three is also up at the Peak, and manages to bring three more hospitals into the story!

This
War Memorial Nursing Home
Was Built By
The Community Of Hongkong
To The Memory Of Those
Who Served And Fell In The Great War
August 1914 - November 1918
The Foundation Stone
Was Laid By Mrs W T Southorn Wife Of
The Officer Administering The Government
On 24th April 1930
At The Going Down Of The Sun And In The Morning
We Will Remember Them

First then, is the War Memorial Nursing Home (Notes & map / Photos), which stood on the ridge between Homestead Road and Mount Kellett Road:

If we walk around to the other side of the foundation stone, we can see a later engraving was added:

This building was acquired as
a Royal Naval Hospital
on the conclusion of World War II
and was opened as such on
12th January 1949

That's our second hospital. The third is the stone's current location - when the old building shown above was demolished, the foundation stones were preserved, and now live in the grounds of the nearby Matilda Hospital.

The last foundation stone we'll look at is also at the Peak:

The stone was kept when the rest of the building was demolished, but after that it's a case of preservation through neglect! Contributor 80sKid found this stone while crashing through the undergrowth - it had probably been pushed down the slope at some point, and left to sit there. He notes the stone came from the Commodore's Bungalow, and has the inscription:

The Stone Was Laid By Mrs Swinton Holland on January 1897.

Here's how the building looked in the 1920s:

We've got a small collection of photos of foundation stones taken around Hong Kong: http://gwulo.com/taxonomy/term/2461/photos-gallery

If you see any others, please could you snap a quick photo and upload it to Gwulo? Once I see it I'll add it to the collection. I'm specially interested to see any that are inside buildings, and so hidden from public view. (Here's how to upload a photo: http://gwulo.com/node/2076)

Any photos of the souvenir trowels that were used in these ceremonies will also be good to see.

Regards,

David

Terry Bennett has written a three-volume history of photography in China in the nineteenth century. He has very kindly allowed us to post the chapter about Chinese photographers in Hong Kong here on Gwulo.

As an appetiser, here are several of the photos from that chapter, many very rarely seen. For the main course, you can read the full chapter at http://gwulo.com/node/31857. It has detailed information about Hong Kong's early Chinese photographers and their studios, and also many more of their photos to enjoy.

Fig. 6.7. Lai Fong (Afong Studio). ‘Hongkong. 319.
– Queen’s Road Central’, 1870s. Private Collection.

Fig. 6.12. Afong Studio advertisement from the China Directory, 1873.

Fig. 6.13. Lai Fong (Afong Studio). Westerners in theatrical costume,
1870s–80s. Cabinet card photograph. Author’s Collection.

Fig. 6.16. Lai Fong (Afong Studio). ‘Japanese Moosmi 1873’.
Another print of this image is also in the collection of
the Wilson Centre for Photography with a printed caption
label reading ‘No. 28. A Japanese Lady, wife of one
of the principal Merchants in Japan.’ Author’s Collection.

Fig. 6.19. Lai Fong (Afong Studio). ‘No. 267. – Race Course. As seen from
Morrison’s Hill - the buildings on the right are the New Stand, and Matsheds
or Stable, used during race times by the owners of horses. - The length of the
course is 3/4 of a mile - at the rear or foot of the Hills is the
Protestant Cemetery,’ 1870s. Author’s Collection.

Fig. 6.20. Lai Fong (Afong Studio). ‘A Group of all the different Compradores
employed at the European Hongs, in Hongkong’, 1870s. The accompanying
printed caption has the number ‘98’. Author’s Collection.

Fig. 6.24. Lai Fong (Afong Studio). ‘No. 34. Group of
Chinese Actors and Actresses’, 1870s. The original number
has been crossed through in pencil and the new number
‘691’ has been substituted. Author’s Collection.

Fig. 6.29. Lai Fong (Afong Studio). ‘No. 43. “Chang” – the Chinese Giant.
The tallest man in China, he is seven feet eight inches in
height’, 1870s. Author’s Collection.

Fig. 6.42. Ye Chung. Portrait of Zhou Senfeng, proprietor of
the Ye Chung Studio, Hong Kong, 1870s. The photograph is
signed in Chinese characters by Zhou and the mount is
captioned in English ‘Our Artist in China (Ye Chung)’. This is
the only known likeness of Zhou. Private Collection.

Fig. 6.43. Pun Lun. Ornately decorated back of a
typical cabinet card from Pun Lun’s Hong Kong
studio, c.1890.

Fig. 6.47. Pun Lun. Chinese merchants, 1870s. Compare the
studio props with those shown in fig. A95. Author’s Collection.

Fig. 6.50. Wo Cheong (Cheung). Actors, c.1890. Hand-tinted
gelatin silver print photograph. Author’s Collection.

See more of these rare old photos, and read about the men who took them, at http://gwulo.com/node/31857