FIRST BUILDING AT KOWLOON
878
ROSE TERRACE TO BE DEMOLISHED
LINK WITH SUBURB'S EARLY HISTORY
FIFTY YEARS OLD
One of Kowloon's few remaining links with the last century will disappear shortly with the demolition of Rose Terrace, the ancient yellow two-storeyed block that has weathered typhoons and storms at the southern end of Nathan Road, Kowloon, for more than 50 years.
Originally used as private dwellings, the terrace has been used for business purposes for some years now. Its demolition is to make way for a huge block of apartments, plans for which are now being prepared.
Old Rose Terrace knows more of Kowloon than the present generation for it was the first brick structure to be erected on the Kowloon side of the harbour. Interesting tales and reminiscences surround its building, for now it is a couple of hundred yards from the seawall, yet when it was built in the late eighties, the waves broke against a beach where Middle Road runs to-day, on its southern side.
Extensive reclamation has altered the sea shore in that vicinity and provided the soil on which the palatial Peninsula Hotel, the European Y.M.C.A., Alfred Holt's Godowns, the Post office, Kowloon Canton Railway Station and other buildings now stand.
PORTUGUESE PIONEER
To Mr. Mathias Azevedo, one of the earliest Portuguese settlers, goes the credit of having been responsible for the construction of Rose Terrace. Mr. Azevedo did for Kowloon what Dr. Delfino Noronha did for Yaumati several years later.
In those days the reclamation of Tsimshatsui Bay had not been considered, and the whole of the peninsula of British Kowloon was practically given over to Chinese farmers and was all padi fields. Tsimshatsui Bay was a crescent-shaped inlet between a bamboo Police pier, where the Star Ferry Wharf now is, and Blackhead's Point, behind the site of the present Holt's Wharves.
The sandy shores of the bay were fringed with matshed bungalows which were used as week-end residences in the same way as similar sheds at Castle Peak and other localities are used to-day. These matshed bungalows were built on single-acre lots which the Government had sold for $25 each.
Mr.
Among those who acquired these lots were Mr. Azevedo, Joao M. A. da Silva, Mr. Chagas and Mr. Ribeiro, all of whom, with the exception of Mr. Azevedo, were employed in the Government service. Mr. da Silva was audit clerk and the first Government electrician in the Colony.