Mount Caroline Cemetery [1891- ]

Submitted by annelisec on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 23:17
Current condition
Ruin
Date completed

I looks like it is reached by a set of stairs and path next to 20 Broadwood Road, or take the road up to Broadwood Park, 38 Broadwood Road.

Chinese name is Coffee Garden Cemetery - 咖啡園墳場

 

Use http://www.map.gov.hk to see it properly.

 

Forgotten Souls: A Social History of the Hong Kong Cemetery
 By Patricia Lim

 

When in 1844 rice growing in Happy Valley and So Kon Po Valley were forbidden, the thirty-seven acres of land in that valley had been purchased by the government, drained and divided into five farm lots.  At the land auction in 1846, Duddell bought one lot and by 1857 had acquired all five lots and is said to have established a coffee farm on the land.

 

 

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Photos that show this Place

Caroline Hill Cemetery
2011
Caroline Hill Cemetery
2011
Lots near Mount Caroline Cemetery
2011
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I stumbled on this several years ago. You can walk up from the right hand side of the stadium, through the abandoned foundations and floors of squatter settlements long since cleared. Chinese graves are visible through the overgrown vegetation near the top, as are several wild dogs... It's not the easiest of going given the wild nature and broken staircases of the place, plus I couldn't find any obvious exit on to Broadwood Road and was forced to scale a wall and drop down on to the carpark of a high-end development. Despite my disshevelled appearance no one seemed stopped me though having a white face may have helped...

The whole area was part of the So Kon Po resettlement area, so-called by the government, as detailed here: http://gwulo.com/node/5076 

Mount Caroline Cemetery is situated just below what was The Towers at 20 Broadwood Road, now demolished, but final home of my grandfather Charles Warren (1872-1923). A tender exists from the architects A. C. Little & C. E. Warren in 1913 to buy Crown land in order to build an access road to the cemetery for funeral processions. Little and Warren must have gone into partnership to build the road. My cousin, Diana Warren (b. 1927), who lived at 19 Broadwood Road until 1938, has memories of exploring the cemetery as a child. You can get to  it via a small path up a bank from Broadwood Road above the existing no. 20. The steep overgrown cemetery represents a piece of old Hong Kong that remains intact next to the new tower blocks with their sentries. Above it is an immaculate tennis court that may be on the site of the old Towers tennis court. My attempt to find the site of The Towers and discovery of the cemetery was in November 2004. It sounds easier to attack it from the top!

Absolutely, but only in 2004 did I search for and find the birth certificate of my grandmother, Hannah Warren née Olson, courtesy of the HKPRO, revealing that Sean and I had different Chinese great-grandmothers, as he reports. John Olson (John 1) had sons by each of them, both of whom he named John. The first, by Yau Kum Olson, and who died aged 2 months in 1879, would have been brother to my grandmother and so my great-uncle; the second, by Ching Ah Fung, later Ellen Olson, was Sean’s grandfather. 

There are 2 entrances to the Cemetary.  From the bottom, behind the stadium: N 22° 16.313 E 114° 11.345 or from the top, near the top of Broadwood Road: N 22° 16.128 E 114° 11.352 

You can also see the path on Openstreetmap.  Its a fascinating place, but during the summer months it can be a bit stifling with a lot of mozzies.  Bring plenty of spray.

TB

I am fascinated by it too, having heard so many haunted story when I was young.

Didn't know it still exsists until last year and visited it thrice.

The author in fact is the wife of a masonic brother of mine.

I did some exploring this weekend, and ended up in a small clearing that had a stone carved with "Mt Caroline Cemetery", but it was not where the maps show the Cemetery to be. I have posted all the pictures on my blog:

http://www.rossmoore.net/2014/01/an-awfully-big-adventure.html

We also followed a path down through what was the So Kon Po settlement area (I think) almost to the stadium.

Hi Sarah, Thanks for taking plenty of photos.

The two square stones you found were used to mark the edges (usually the corners) of a plot of land's boundary.

The first one (see photo) would have been one of several that marked the boundary of the cemetery.

The second one (see photo) originally read "W^D No.13", and was one of at least 13 stones that marked the boundary of a piece of land belonging to the War Department, ie the British Army. I didn't know that the Army had land around here. I wonder what it was used for?

If possible, please could you mark the location of the stones on your map?

Regards,David

PS Here are some more of these boundary stones around Hong Kong: http://gwulo.com/hong-kong-war-department-boundary-stones

the cemetery was gazetted in January 1867, to replace the Chinese cemetery in Happy Valley (guessing that was the one on the plot that later became Le Calvaire convent). The graveyard was for Chinese dying "east of the Parade Ground." Read somewhere that Japanese burials took place there towards the 1940s.

http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkgro/view/g1867/710837.pdf 

The name "Caroline Hill" is in use by 1863 (See Plate 2-2 in Mapping Hong Kong).

On the 1845 map, the name Caroline Hill isn't used, though there's a building there marked "Morgans Bung". Perhaps a connection between Morgan (or a later resident of that building) and Caroline?

Regards, David

Is this the same person mentioned in the article you (80sKid) quoted?

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%83%A1%E7%A6%AE%E5%9E%A3

Anyone has the idea of the location (with coordinates) of the marker WD13?

I have only been to the #2 boundary stone of this cemetery a few times, but haven't come across the other markers at all.

IMG_20201222_151259_Mt Caroline Cemetery BS.jpg
IMG_20201222_151259_Mt Caroline Cemetery BS.jpg, by H.Lo