Chief Justice's house was evidently at the northern extremity of this ridge, immediately above Spring Gardens, then a fashionable quarter, as we have seen by another picture of Bruce's. In the immediate foreground of the picture reproduced here we can see some of the fine houses standing there, and the wharves which served then as the Albany Godowns, which are to be seen just below the hill. Bruce drew his perspectives most faithfully, and nothing of the scene in 1846 has been omitted.
In visualising the place to-day, one must remember that the seafront shown here was partly reclaimed in 1873, and the former praya now runs approximately along the line of Wanchai Road. Since then, a further reclamation has taken the seafront much further out, forming the Praya East area of to-day.
The site of the Albany Godowns was recalled by Albany Street, now a good way inland, and renamed Tai Yuen Street.
Bruce's picture takes in the whole length of the old city waterfront, showing Queen's Road by the seashore, with a town area only half as wide as it is at present: indeed, practically all the water portion of the picture is now dry land crowded with buildings! Thus do the years bring vast changes to a developing seaport.
Page 138
There is an old plan in the Land Office which shows the whole of the alignment of the seafront at the time this view was sketched, and one realises how accurately the artist adhered to the scene before him. The two jutting out stone wharves are shown in the plan exactly where he has put them.
410
The mention of Chief Justice Hulme recalls that he was one of the most interesting personalities of the time. As with so many other public servants of early Hongkong days, he was misrepresented, criticised, unjustly abused, and eventually acknowledged to be one of the best servants of the Crown the Colony had been favoured with! It is intended to give a fairly full record of this judge's career in a subsequent article on Old Hongkong: he deserves a chapter to himself in any history of the Colony.
The concluding picture of the series of twelve Hong Kong sketches by H. Bruce is given to-day. It is entitled "View of Lyndhurst Terrace, Wellington Street and Cochrane Street, looking from the Roman Catholic Chapel, 20th August, 1846."
In order that a better idea of the scene might be obtained, I include a key plan of the locality, taken from an old map of the city, which shows the position of the former Roman Catholic chapel (later raised to the status of a cathedral) on Wellington Street. Mr. Bruce must have taken up a position rather near the corner of Wellington and Pottinger Streets as shown in this plan. The roadway sloping down on the right-hand side of the picture is Wellington Street, and that going up to the left, on which a row of houses fronts, is Lyndhurst Terrace. It is difficult to understand why Cochrane
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29.
Chief Justice's house was evidently at the northern extremity of this ridge, immediately above Spring Gardens, then a fashionable quarter, as we have seen by another picture of Bruce's. In the immediate foreground of the picture reproduced here we can see some of the fine houses standing there, and the wharves which served then as the Albany. Godowns, which are to be seen just below the hill. Bruce drew his perspectives most faithfully, and nothing of the scene in 1846 has been omitted.
In visualising the place to-day, one must remember that the seafront shown here was partly reclaimed in 1873, and the former praya now runs approximately along the line of Wanchai Road. Since then, a further reclamation has taken the seafront much further out, forming the Praya Last area of to-day.
The site of the Albany Godowns was recalled by Albany Street, now a good way inland, and renamed Tai Yuen Street.
Bruce's picture takes in the whole length of the old city waterfront, showing Queen's Road by the seashore, with a town area only half as wide as it is at present: indeed, practically all the water portion of the picture is now dry land crowded with buildings! Thus do the years bring vast changes to a developing seaport.
138
There is an old plan in the Land Office which shows the whole of the alignment of the seafront at the time this view was sketched, and one realises how accurately the artist adhered to the scene before him. The two jutting out stone wharves are shown in the plan exactly where he has put them.
410
The mention of Chief Justice Hulme recalls that he was one of the most interesting personalities of the time. As with so many other public servants of early hongkong days, he was misrepresented, criticised, unjustly abused, and eventually acknowledged to be one of the best servants of the Crown the Colony had been favoured with! It is intended to give a fairly full record of this judge's career in a subsequent article on Old Hongkong: he deserves a chapter to himself in any history of the Colony.
The concluding picture of the series of twelve Hong Kong sketches by H. Bruce is given to-day. It is entitled "View of Lyndhurst Terrace, Wellington Street and Cochrane Street, looking from the Roman Catholic Chapel, 20th August, 1846."
In order that a better idea of the scene might be obtained, I include, a key plan of the locality, taken from an old map of the city, which shows the position of the former Roman Catholic chapel (later raised to the status of a cathedral) on Wellington Street. Ir. Bruce must have taken up a position rather near the corner of Wellington and Pottinger Streets as shown in this plan. The roadway sloping down on the right-hand side of the picture is Wellington Street, and that going up to the left, on which a row of houses fronts, is Lyndhurst Terrace. It is difficult to understand why Cochrane
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