942
HONGKONG
situated between Queen's Road Central and
The
Road Central and Des Voeux Road, was opened in 1895, and in 1906 another fine market was opened further west, and is known as the Western Market. The building of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank is large, hand- some and massive, and would do credit to any large city. It occupies a fine site next to the City Hall, and has frontages on Queen's Road and Des Voeux Road. 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. Opposite the Des Vœux Road entrance to the Bank stands a bronze statue of Sir Thomas Jackson, Bart. who from 1876 to 1902 was chief manager of the Bank. The statue was unveiled by Governor Sir Matthew Nathan on February 24th, 1906. An extensive reclamation along the city water frontage from West Point to Murray Road initiated by Sir C. P. Chater, C.M.G., was completed in 1903, the total area reclaimed from the sea being ap- proximately 65 acres. Of this area 33·73 acres constitute building land, the remainder being occupied by roads and open spaces. The total cost, including reconstruction of Government piers, was $3,362,325. The various sections as they were ready were rapidly built upon and some of the finest buildings in the Colony have been erected on the reclaimed land. On the eastern section a handsome building for the Hongkong Club was finished in 1897, and was occupied in July of that year. A Clock Tower erected by public subscription in 1862, with illuminated clock presented to the Colony by the firm of Messrs. Douglas Lapraik & Co., stood at the junction of Pedder Street with Queen's Road until 1913, when, as the tower had come to be regarded as an obstruction to traffic, it was demolished and the clock sold at public auction. The Pier at the foot of Pedder Street was opened on the 29th December, 1900, and named Blake Pier in honour of Governor Sir Henry Blake. Further west is the Harbour Master's Office, a commodious and attractively-designed building completed in 1906.
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 glass 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, and one to the memory of Bishop Hoare, who lost his life in the typhoon of 1906, are the chief adornments of the interior. The choir stalls, pulpit, and Bishop's throne are fine samples of Chinese carving in teakwood. It also possesses a 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 edifice 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 Wesleyan chapel stands at the junction of Queen's Road and Kennedy Road; this was enlarged in 1904. The Roman Catholic Cathedral situated in Glenealy Ravine, near the Botanic Gardens, is a large structure in the Gothic style and is a rather imposing building. It was opened for worship in 1888. A campanile tower with a small spire surmounting it was completed in 1904 to receive a new peal of five bells. 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 munificence 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 was erected in 1901, and is situated on the northern side of 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. (afterwards Sir) Jacob Sassoon. There are two Mahomedan Mosques, one in Shelley Street and the other at Kowloon,
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