Location of North Point Bty

Sun, 06/18/2017 - 12:30
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Hi Rob, any chance this map is a bit later than 1879? I thought the other buildings shown weren't as old as that, but we can adjust their dates if the map is definitely from 1879.

The details I have on the North Point Bty come from three separate files in the National Archives at Kew. These involve duplications and varying dates, so I can't specifically say that map itself is of 1879 vintage, as it was undated. I used it to show the position of the guns and battery in 1879, in relation to North Point, as other plans only cover the battery itself, with no surrounding features.

In an unrelated file, with a map dated 1911, North Point Bty has no guns noted, and the only other common feature to both is the Bay View Hotel. The Royal Dutch Petroleum site, Oil Tanks, and Metropole Hotel do not appear. Does that confirm or confuse?

Thanks for the extra info. The Royal Dutch site was built in the late 1890s, so the map must be from then or later. Though the configuration of the battery shown on the map (1x7" RML, 2x9"RML, 1 howitzer) matches the earliest days of the battery, so I don't have an explanation for that!

As the original map is undated I'll clear its date here too.

China Mail dated 21 January 1882

"The permanent battery erected at North Point has now been completed, and it is in contemplation to mount there, during the course of next week, 5 wrough-iron M. L. R. 7 inch 6 1/2 ton guns."

Between 1920 and 1922, the Government acquired the North Point Battery site from the War Department. During the construction of Fort Street, 2 cannons that had been left behind by the Army were found and now displayed in the HK Museum of Coastal Defence.