HONGKONG

379

exterior walls and elegant fluted pillars are of dressed granite, and the offices on the Queen's Road frontage are crowned with a large dome. An extensive reclam- ation along the city water frontage from West Point to Murray Road is now almost completed, and the various sections as they are ready are being rapidly built upon. On the eastern section a handsome building for the Hongkong Club was finished in 1897, and was occupied in July of that year. Near the Club stands the Jubileestatue of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, the erection of which was postponed until this. site became available; it was unveiled on the 28th May, 1896. The statue represents. Queen Victoria in a sitting posture and is of bronze under a stone canopy. The Clock Tower, near Pedder's Wharf, was erected by public subscription in 1862, and the illuminated clock was presented to the Colony by the firm of Messis. Douglas Lapraik & Co. It is proposed to re-erect it some day on a new design at the head of the new Pier at the foot of Pedder's Street, which was opened on the 29th December, 1900, and named Blake Pier in honour of Governor Sir Henry Blake.

The chief religious buildings are: St. John's Cathedral (Anglican), which was erected in the year 1842, occupies a commanding site above the Parade Ground, and is a Gothic church of considerable size but with few pretensions to architecture. It has a square tower, with pinnacles, over the western porch, and possesses a peal of bells. A new chancel was built in 1869-70, the foundation stone of which was laid by the late Duke of Edinburgh on the 16th November, 1869. A handsome stained window in the east end, over the altar, to the memory of the late Mr. Douglas Lapraik, another in the north transept erected in 1892 to the memory of the late Dr. F. Stewart, formerly Colonial Secretary, one in the south transept to the memory of those who perished in the wreck of the P. & O. str. Bokhara, another to the memory of the Hospital Sisters who died in 1898 while in execution of their duty during an outbreak of plague, and the stained clerestory windows of the chancel, presented by Lady Jackson in 1900, are the chief adornments of the interior. The choir stalls, pulpit, and Bishop's throne are fine samples of native carving.

It also possesses

fine three-manual organ containing 47 stops, erected in 1887. St. Peter's (Seamen's) Church, at West Point, close to the Sailors' Home, is a small brick Gothic erection with a spire. It also has a stained glass window, presented in 1878. St. Stephen's Church, for Chinese, was built in 1892. It is a neat building in red brick with white facings, with a tower and spire about 80 feet high, standing on the Pokfo- lum Road side of the Church Mission compound. Union Church, a rather pleasing edifico in the Italian style of architecture, with a spire, and containing accommodation for about 500 persons, formerly stood in Staunton Street, but was rebuilt, in 1890, on the plan of the old building, on a new site above the Kennedy Road, together with a parsonage adjoining. This church possesses an organ, and the three rose windows are filled with stained glass. A small Wesleyan chapel stands at the junction of Queen's Road and Kennedy Road. The Roman Catholic Cathedral is situated in Glenealy ravine, near the Botanic Gardens, and is a large structure in the Gothic style; when completed it will be a rather imposing building. It was opened for wor- ship in 1888. St. Joseph's Church, in Garden Road, is a neat edifice erected in 1876 on the site of one destroyed by the great typhoon of 1874; St. Anthony's Church on the Bonham Road, near West Point, is an ugly structure, erected in 1892 by the muni- ficence of a late Portuguese resident; St. Francis' Church, at Wanchai, and the Church of the Sacred Heart, at West Point, are small and unattractive structures. The Jewish Synagogue is a new building, erected in 1901, on the northern side of the Robinson Road. It is a plain but roomy edifice with two squat towers surmounted by spirets. The entire cost of the Church was borne by Mr. Jacob Sassoon. There are two Mahomedan Mosques, one in Shelley Street and the other at Kowloon, the latter being for the accommodation of the men of the Indian Mahomedan regiments quartered on the peninsula. A Sikh temple was, in 1902, erected near the Wanchai Road approach to the Happy Valley. There are also several Protestant mission chapels. St. Joseph's College, a school for boys managed by the Christian Brothers (Roman Catholic), occu- pies a large and handsome building on a prominent site below Robinson Road. The Italian Convent, in Caine Road, educates a large number of girls, and brings up many orphans gratuitously. The Asile de la Sainte Enfance, in Queen's Road East, is in the hands of French Sisters, who receive and train up numbers of Chinese foundlings. Other denominations likewise support charitable establishments, conspicuous among which are the Diocesan Home and Orphanage, the Berlin Foundling Hospital on Bonham Road, which has a plain little chapel attached (in which services according to the Lutheran' creed are held), the Baxter Vernacular School, the Victoria Female Home and Orphanage, &c. St. Paul's College, situated between Pedder's Hill and

:

I

Digitized by Google

:

Share This Page