[ { "id": 207149, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 220, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "214\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\ngood size bed rooms, with dressing and bath room to each; two servant's rooms; a front and back verandah, closed with venetians, each 100 feet long and 12 feet wide, flat roof convenient for exercise and affording a fine view of the harbour and its entrances. Commodious outbuildings for servants, store room and offices; a large compound, garden, etc., whole surrounded by a good fence. Situated on the ridge at West Point and now in occupation of Jamieson, How and Co.\n\nThere was not a ready sale. A business depression prevailed and the location was too remote from the European section of Victoria.\n\nBelow the bungalow Jamieson, How and Co. built a large godown on Marine Lot 57 in 1842. Ten years later this property was sold at auction. The premises on the Marine Lot were described as consisting of \"a costly and recently improved residence, granite godown, pier, outhouses, shrubbery\". The West Point Bungalow was described as beautifully situated immediately opposite on the hill. Both properties were bought by Yorick Jones Murrow.\n\nIn 1854 the West Point Bungalow was used as a military barracks. This left it the worse for wear. Because of its dilapidated condition the Rhenish Missionary Society was able to purchase the property at a reasonable price in 1857. They needed a centre in Hong Kong as they had been forced from their stations on the mainland by the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and China. In 1859 the Government repossessed the property as a site for a new Civil Hospital.\n\nThe area north of Queen's Road extending to Ko Shing Street was the original beach. The land between Queen Street on the east and Wilmer Street on the west can be divided into six main sections. The first (Marine Lot 68) is a rectangular lot three houses wide and bounded on the east by Queen Street. The second section (Marine Lots 68A, 69, 69A, and 70) is intersected by Tsung Sau Lanes East and West. The third section (Marine Lot 58) is the former Ko Shing Theatre property with Wo Fung and Kom Yu Streets. The fourth section (Marine Lot 57) is bounded on the west by Sutherland Street and contains In Ku Lane. The fifth section (Marine Lots 71, 71A, 72, 72A) lies east of Sutherland Street and is intersected by Li Sing Street. The sixth piece (Marine Lot 200) is a triangular lot with its narrow point on Queen's Road and its west boundary Wilmer Street.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207152, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 223, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n217 \n\nwas redeveloped and in 1868 shops and godowns were built along Queen Street. \n\nNext to Robert's shipyard, Kwok Acheong had a compound in which he erected coal sheds, carpenter shops and a smithy. The latter was operated by Augustine Heard and Company. The present entrance to Tsung Sau Lane East on Queen's Road was the site of the original entry gate into the compound. By 1872 most of the buildings in \"Acheong's Yard\" had been removed, but in 1877 after the property had been sold to the Li family firm of Lai Hing, buildings were started along Tsung Sau Lane East. In the following year work was begun to redevelop Marine Lot 70, where Tsung Sau Lane West was opened in 1879. Previously the lot had been occupied by an engineering establishment. It was occupied successively by James Logan, William Swan, a boiler-maker, and William Dunphy, proprietor of the Novelty Iron Works. \n\nA large shipyard was built in 1856 on Marine Lot 58 where the Pybus godown had been built in 1842. The owners were two Scotsmen, George Harper and David Gow. In 1862 they sold out to James Logan, a plumber by trade, who took on as his partner John Riach, an experienced shipwright from Singapore. They operated as the Hong Kong Engine Works. The works of the new firm were destroyed by fire in 1866 and they sold the property to Li Sing. He redeveloped it by building a complex of shops, merchant hongs, family houses, and a theatre named Ko Shing. \n\nThree years before Harper and Gow built their shipyard, the P. & O. Co. had begun building extensive godowns and coal sheds on property immediately to the west. Some of this land they leased, others they purchased. Thus for a decade or so in the middle of the nineteenth century the entire area was dominated by establishments connected with the shipping industry. \n\nAs the land on which the ship yards, smithies and coal sheds had been built was redeveloped, the area took on its present land use. On Queen's Road there were the shops; on the Praya (now the south side of Ko Shing Street) the business hongs; and in the lanes and alleys between, godowns and businesses auxiliary to the hongs, such as paper, lumber, bags, mats and firewood (from broken down boxes) — all used in packing and shipping. \n\nThe lanes opened at various times, depending on when the lots were redeveloped. Those on Marine Lot 58 were the first. They", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207153, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 224, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "218 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\ncame about at the time of the building of the Ko Shing Theatre in 1870. The theatre gave its name to the old Praya when the sea was reclaimed near the turn of the century. Today a new building is being built on the site of the theatre. Two lanes were left on either side. The western one was called Kom Yu and the eastern Wo Fung. A short lane, Pan Kwai, ran off Wo Fung. It contained five family houses on each side. It no longer exists, as the Ko Shing Telephone Exchange has been built over it. Tsung Sau Lanes East and West were developed between 1877 and 1879, as was also In Ku Lane and Sutherland Street with its godowns. Li Sing Street was opened later.\n\nAs an illustration of the diversity of shops conducted on Queen's Road, the 1885 Rate and Valuation Table lists the following between Queen's Street and Wilmer Street: four each of chandlers, druggists and barbers; three each of tin smiths, merchants and tea dealers; two each of coopers, shoes, scales, lamps, lumber and tobacco; and one each of iron, cotton, silk, joss paper, pickles, rice, pawnshop, mason, carpenter, eating house, marine store, copper smith and gun smith.\n\nCurrently much redevelopment is taking place, but some of the old alleys, particularly In Ku, still retain buildings erected when they were first opened a hundred years ago. Queen's Road still has the same variety of shops and Ko Shing Street is still lined with Nam-pak business hongs.\n\n(b) Chinese Tea Houses\n\n(1) A Chinese friend has supplied the following Note:\n\nCha Kui (**茶居**) is the old, local name for a Chinese Tea House. It is a special type of Chinese restaurant catering exclusively for tea-lovers. Tea drinking or Yum Cha (**飲茶**) has been a long-standing pastime with the people of the Kwangtung Province to which Hong Kong once belonged. It is popular with poor and rich alike. A tea house is sometimes looked upon as a gathering place for meeting people, talking with friends or for taking leisure in a friendly atmosphere. Most tea-house goers used to go to the same tea house everyday and also at almost the same time of the day and it is also customary that they ask for the same kind of tea each time they go. In a sense, a tea house for Cantonese people is much like and comparable to a 'pub' for English people.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 } ]