Historian Jason Wordie uncovers relics of times past buried among Hong Kong’s skyscrapers
Finding a coherent sense of historical continuity, one that anchors the present day firmly within the context of the past, can be a challenge in modern Hong Kong. One basic, inescapable fact remains: the city is only 170 years old. Hong Kong simply does not have a very long urban history, or an extensive surviving heritage from successive eras to appreciate and enjoy.
From an estimated land-dwelling population of around 10,000 in 1841, when British rule was established, to the current total of seven million, the city has experienced a host of momentous events and phenomena: war, massive reclamation, enormous influxes of refugees and migrants, and constant redevelopment in the past 60 years. All these factors have greatly diminished what architectural heritage there once was.
But despite the overwhelming evidence of destruction and renewal, far more hidden history exists among the modernity than many might suspect. A few hours of detailed exploration reveals that there is much more to this wonderfully multifaceted city than glitzy shopping malls, the latest bars and restaurants and relentless 24/7 commercial activity.
Central, Wanchai and Tsim Sha Tsui are all readily accessible, and offer a far richer diversity of historical interest than many visitors would expect. Convenient transport links can be found at the start and end points of each of the following suggested itineraries. Happy exploring!
Central
The fast-beating heart of Hong Kong’s finance and commerce, this district is one that visitors to the city soon feel they “know”, but even many long-time residents never really penetrate its hidden depths.
For a city dedicated to the pursuit of wealth, the main entrance of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) offers a logical starting point for our exploration. Sir Norman Foster’s iconic 1986 building, which resembles a gigantic child’s construction kit, is one of the city skyline’s most notable modern landmarks. But just below, clues to Hong Kong’s rich history begin. A pair of massive bronze lions cast in 1934 for the new HSBC building silently bear the scars of war. Shrapnel damage sustained during the Japanese invasion can be seen; their sculptor, William Wagstaff, was tragically killed in the defence of Hong Kong in 1941.
From its inception in the early 20th century, Statue Square has been Central’s principal civic space and was named for a statue of Queen Victoria. Originally cast for her Diamond Jubilee in 1897, removed by the Japanese but subsequently recovered after the war ended and brought back to Hong Kong, the statue can still be seen today, at the entrance to Causeway Bay’s Victoria Park.
Across the tramlines on Des Voeux Road Central (Hong Kong Island’s original waterline), the old Supreme Court building, now a protected monument, is the sole surviving architectural reminder of earlier times. Built in 1903 and used as Hong Kong’s Legislative Council for many years, it now awaits a return to its earlier role as a courthouse. On the Chater Garden side, patched-up wartime blast damage can still be seen on the walls and stone columns.
Now a small urban park and popular weekend venue for public rallies, Chater Garden was used as a cricket ground until the mid-1970s. Across the road the old Bank of China building dates from 1950 and is a rare surviving example of art-deco influenced architecture in the middle of the city.
Now walk back under the HSBC building and cross Queen’s Road Central. On the rise behind, originally a gun battery from which Battery Path takes its name, the Court of Final Appeal building is one of early Hong Kong’s most prominent surviving structures, originally built in the 1860s for Augustine Heard and Co, an American trading firm that operated in Canton (modern Guangzhou) before Hong Kong was established. Sold to the French Missions Étrangères de Paris in 1915, and extensively remodelled, the building has been popularly known as the French Mission Building ever since. Fleur-de-Lys shaped shutter catches offer striking yet subtle visual links to the building’s French heritage.
Just across an open compound, the Anglican St John’s Cathedral was built in 1847. Cool and meditative, the church provides a tranquil shelter from Central’s crowds. Peals of bronze bells, which sound four times an hour, were presented to the cathedral for Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation in 1953.
Inside, numerous wartime reminders are on display: St Michael’s Chapel on the southern side has regimental memorial plaques, the first Red Ensign back into Hong Kong after the Pacific War ended, and the tattered Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps King’s Colour, buried to prevent its capture by the Japanese, and only recovered years later. Burmese teak used in the doors and screens was salvaged from a Royal Navy ship sunk in the harbour during the war. Hong Kong’s enduring maritime links are commemorated in a memorial window that features a merchant seaman, a Tanka boat-woman, and their respective coastal and riverine vessels.
Under a spreading tree in the grounds between the Court of Final Appeal and St John’s Cathedral, the solitary grave of Private Roy Maxwell, a local Volunteer soldier, can be seen. Maxwell was killed two days before Hong Kong fell to the Japanese on Christmas Day 1941.
Retrace your steps down Battery Path to the corner with Ice House Street. This busy thoroughfare takes its name from the early ice depot that stood just across from the Battery Path junction. Along with air conditioning, widespread refrigeration is taken completely for granted today, but until improved technology allowed artificial ice manufacture in Hong Kong in the late 1870s, all Hong Kong’s ice was imported from – you’d never guess where – New England! Nineteenth century voyages from the US took four months, with an expected wastage-in-transit of between 40 and 60 per cent. Accordingly, ice in early Hong Kong was a very highly priced luxury item.
Continue along Queen’s Road Central and turn left into Duddell Street to encounter enduring symbolic links to Hong Kong’s role in China’s emergent 19th century modernity. The gas lamps here remind us that widespread Victorian technological innovations, combined with a reliable legal system, helped transform a remote island into a modern metropolis. Along with gas street lighting, safe drinking water and modern health services, 19th century Hong Kong had the best communications in the Far East, with worldwide submarine telegraphic cable links (the email of its era) from the 1870s.
At the top of the steps, turn right and continue up Ice House Street, past Bishop’s House (which dates from 1848) with its crenellated tower and the Foreign Correspondent’s Club (FCC; 1917) and along Wyndham Street to Hollywood Road. Best known for its antique dealers, Hollywood Road’s massive Central Police Station complex and the adjacent Victoria Prison buildings date from 1842. Architecture from various periods up to the 1960s can be found within the site. Slated for conservation and conversion to a variety of public uses, the entire complex is currently under renovation, and remains closed to the general public. The nearby Central-Midlevels Escalator, however, provides some excellent photographic vantage points.
Follow the escalator route farther up the hillside until you reach the Jamia Mosque on Shelley Street. First built in 1849 and rebuilt in 1915, this picturesque, green-painted house of worship has little-remembered historical links to Central Police Station. From the early 1840s until after the Pacific War, a significant proportion of Hong Kong’s police force were recruited from India. As Central Police Station was close by, the Jamia Mosque was used by policemen for daily prayers. Enormous old mango trees in the compound (examples are also found within Central Police Station) provide enduring botanical and culinary links to the Indian community.
Opened in 1994, the Central-Midlevels Escalator offers numerous opportunities for casual eating and drinking. This burgeoning restaurant and nightlife district has become popularly known as SoHo – a derivative, aspirational designation which sadly ignores Hong Kong’s own unique heritage; a century ago, this area was known among the city’s local Portuguese settlers, who lived around here, as “Matto Moro” or “The Field of the Muslims”.
After a meal or a drink around SoHo – or Matto Moro, as you choose – walk downhill along the escalator route to the tramlines. Here you can pick up an eastbound tram, and 10 minutes or so later alight at Pacific Place to begin your historical exploration around Wanchai.
Wanchai
Despite extensive redevelopment in recent years, Wanchai – which means “small bay” in Cantonese – retains a gritty, down-to-earth character at variance with other more gentrified districts. Queen’s Road East – which starts in Wanchai and leads on through Central and Western – was a pre-British era walking track, which linked villages in Happy Valley and Aberdeen. It was widened by British military engineers in 1842.
At the junction of Queen’s Road East and Supreme Court Road, three air raid tunnel portals can be seen. Now blocked up and sadly not (as yet) commemorated by any heritage marker, these tunnels were built in advance of the Japanese attack in 1941, but were mostly extensively used during the American bombing raids over occupied Hong Kong in 1944-45.
Wanchai’s reputation as a nightlife – read Red Light – entertainment district goes back well over a century. Sailors from all over the world sought companionship and recreation in Wanchai’s backstreets – and in areas like Lockhart Road they still do today. Not far along from the air raid tunnel portals, Ship Street was once one of the Far East’s most notorious thoroughfares. Now quiet and unremarkable, for almost a century most of Hong Kong’s licensed brothels were located here. With changes to public health legislation in the early 1930s, the brothels were closed down. At the top of Ship Street a substantial early 20th century red-brick house, known as Nam Kwu Toi, stands locked up, abandoned and decaying – a lingering relic of earlier times.
Farther along Queen’s Road East, the tiny Hung Shing Temple (also known as Tai Wong Temple from an alternative name for the principal deity worshipped here) looks like it grew out of the hillside boulders. And in some respects, it did, as the temple evolved from a small shrine, located above the shoreline that existed before British arrival on Hong Kong Island. The main structure was built in 1847 and has been renovated several times since. Ornate Shek Wan pottery friezes along the roof, installed in 1909, are a noted feature.
At the junction of Queen’s Road East and Wanchai Gap Road, turn right at the old Wanchai Post Office. Opened for business in 1915 and now a gazetted monument, this is the oldest surviving post office building in Hong Kong. Walk steeply uphill to the junction with Kennedy Road, turn left and soon, just below, you will see the Pak Tai Temple.
Built in 1863 and recently renovated, the temple has numerous excellent examples of Shek Wan pottery and intricately worked, brightly coloured decorative Lingnan plaster mouldings. The Taoist deity worshipped here reputedly has the power to avert personal and public disasters, and has been revered in the Chinese world for over 3,000 years.
Stone Nullah Lane, next to the Pak Tai Temple, takes its name from stone-lined storm drainage channels known as nullahs – now covered over here. Walk down the lane, passing some surviving old tenement buildings with ornamental ironwork balconies, and cross Queen’s Road East to the old Wanchai Market building. Now concealed under hoardings, it was constructed in 1937 and is a glaring example of a heritage-grade building that could – and should – have been better preserved. The building was sold by the government for redevelopment in the 1990s, before wider public awareness of heritage issues became a hot topic; after considerable public protest, and active lobbying on the part of the government, the new owners eventually agreed to incorporate the façade into a new luxury residential development on the site.
Walk down until you reach Cross Street market, and turn left. An accessible example of Hong Kong’s vibrant local street markets, Cross Street has something of interest for everyone. Fresh vegetables, meat and fish, dried food items, everyday clothes and Chinese ritual items can all be found here at competitive prices.
Turn right at the junction of Spring Garden Lane and walk down to the tramlines on Johnston Road. Spring Garden Lane has numerous small, characteristic shops selling fragrant spices, various kinds of Southeast Asian produce, inexpensive clothing and a variety of tasty noodle shops that are always packed with customers. Enjoy the contrast between the vibrant, bustling street life here, noticeably absent from the steel-and-glass skyscrapers – and sterile, homogenised lifestyles they epitomise – only a few hundred metres away.
Turn left onto Johnston Road and walk along to the junction with Tai Wong Street. Here a row of well-preserved, early 20th century shophouses have been turned into an upmarket gastro-pub known as The Pawn. The original building here housed a Chinese pawnshop, and the distinctive signage, which has been incorporated into the modern design, reflects this heritage. The Pawn’s rooftop terrace is a pleasant, low-key place for a drink at the end of your exploration.
Tsim Sha Tsui
Unlike Hong Kong Island, which became a British possession in 1842, the Kowloon Peninsula was only formally ceded to Britain in 1860. Originally acquired as an additional defence measure in the mid-1850s, Tsim Sha Tsui’s remaining architectural heritage is closely linked to the military presence, and the city’s maritime trade and transport links.
Crossing Victoria Harbour by the Star Ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui – “Sharp Sandy Point” in Cantonese – is the classic mode of arrival and is not to be missed. The Star Ferry, originally started by a local Portuguese businessman and later taken over by a local Parsee entrepreneur, has been a mainstay of Hong Kong life ever since the late 19th century.
Next to the Star Ferry, the red-brick and granite clock tower is the only remaining fragment of the waterfront Kowloon-Canton Railway Station, built in 1916. In the 1920s and 1930s, before air transport became widespread, the fastest sea passage to Europe took over a month; train travel was the most popular fast route to Europe. With changes in China, Russia and Europe, one could depart from Kowloon and arrive at London’s Victoria Station 10 days later.
When the Kowloon-Canton Railway Station was demolished in 1978, in the face of vehement public protest, the clock tower was retained and subsequently incorporated into the Hong Kong Cultural Centre’s design. At the base of the clock tower, repaired blast damage sustained during the war can be seen.
Across Salisbury Road from the ski-jump shaped, pink-tile encrusted Hong Kong Cultural Centre, the old Marine Police Station, originally located on a waterfront hill, has been extensively renovated and is now known as 1881 Heritage, a boutique hotel and series of high-end designer boutiques. Renovation has been sympathetic, but the near-total excavation and obliteration of the site itself, and all context of its earlier role, is a textbook example of worst-practice for heritage sites. The only original buildings are the Marine Police Station – now known as Hullett House, the old time-signal tower, and the red-brick Tsim Sha Tsui Fire Station, which now showcases a Shanghai Tang outlet.
Farther along Salisbury Road, the Peninsula Hotel has been a luxurious local landmark since it opened in 1928. Hong Kong’s surrender to the Japanese on Christmas night, 1941 was signed in Room 336 of the hotel, and during the Pacific War the hotel was renamed the Toa, or East Asia. Afternoon tea at “The Pen” is an enduring Hong Kong treat, justified by the long queues and lengthy wait for a table.
From the hotel, turn left into Nathan Road, named after Sir Matthew Nathan, Hong Kong’s only bachelor Governor. Walking north you will see Chungking Mansions, a former upscale apartment block that has since become a hub for cheap hostels, curry houses and small businesses that are, unbeknownst to many, responsible for 80 per cent of all mobile phones used in sub-Saharan Africa.
Walk through the ground floor of Chungking Mansions to Minden Row, turn right and continue up to Signal Hill Park behind. Hidden away among dense foliage, this secluded hillside park, once known as Blackhead Point, is one of Tsim Sha Tsui’s best-kept secrets. Climb the red-brick signal tower, built in 1907, to enjoy magnificent views down the eastern approaches to Victoria Harbour.
From Signal Hill, walk back along Minden Row, turn left into Mody Road and on to Nathan Road, crossing to enter Kowloon Park. Originally a British Army camp known as Whitfield Barracks, this has been open public space since the late 1970s. Former military buildings inside the park now house the Heritage Discovery Centre, which attractively showcases numerous aspects of local history, heritage and culture for visitors.
Return to Nathan Road and continue northwards. The red-brick Antiquities and Monuments Office was originally built in 1900 as the Central British School, the first school for European children in Hong Kong, and the precursor institution of today’s English Schools Foundation schools. Inside are numerous free pamphlets on aspects of Hong Kong’s heritage that can still be seen around the city today.
Next door, St Andrews Church, built in 1904, was donated to the local community by Sir Paul Chater, an Armenian business magnate who came to Hong Kong from Calcutta in the 1860s, created an extensive business empire and, when he died in 1926, left much of his money to local charity. On the hillside slope behind the church other air-raid tunnel entrances can be seen, hidden among the shrubbery.
Continue north along Nathan Road and turn right into Austin Road. Just past the Kowloon Bowling Green Club at the junction of Jordan Path, Gun Club Hill Barracks and its extensive grounds is a leafy reminder of the old British Garrison presence. Now used by the People’s Liberation Army (uniformed military guards can be seen – and photographed – at the back entrance, down Jordan Path), the buildings date from the 1880s to the 1960s. Continue along Jordan Path to the junction with Jordan Road, turn left, cross Cox’s Road and soon you will see the small Kowloon Union Church, built in 1930. Along with the old bungalow next door (now a migrant worker shelter) the church is reminiscent of earlier times, when Kowloon was low-rise, suburban and much quieter than today’s dense high-rise conurbation and thundering expressways.
Where Jordan Road intersects with Nathan Road, on the northwest corner the long-established, Mainland government-owned Yue Hwa Chinese Products Department Store still offers a (somewhat) nostalgic shopping experience. Merchandise has moved steadily upmarket in recent years, but attractive porcelain, reasonably priced homeware items, high-grade silk fabrics and good-quality traditional herbal medicines offer a glimpse of earlier times. Just below Yue Hwa Chinese Products Department Store, Jordan MTR Station provides easy access back to Central.
