Beaconsfield House [1963-1995]

Submitted by David on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 12:11
Current condition
Demolished / No longer exists
Date completed
(Day & Month are approximate.)
Date closed / demolished
(Day & Month are approximate.)

More information on Wikipedia.

Previous place(s) at this location
Beaconsfield Arcade [1880-1933]
Mobilgas Petrol Station on Queen's Road Central [c.1950-c.1961]

Photos that show this Place

1963 Central Aerial View
1963
Beaconsfield House
1963
1965
See more photos of this place

Comments

 

Was that same name given to the former HKVDC building (redeveloped into the "East Wing" of CGO).

Another integral component of Central Government Offices was the now defunct Beaconsfield house (Kung Pak Hgng, or "Defend the North House", was the Cantonese name for Beaconsfield House).  Beaconsfield House had been used as a clubhouse-cum-office of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC) and the headquarters of the Government Information Services (GIS).  In the 1990s, the Beaconsfield House (togehter with the adjacent old Hilton Hotel) was demolished for redevelopment of the present 60-storey Cheung Kong Center.

In my secondary school days I would sometimes go into 'Kung Bak Hong' and have lunch there with my classmates.  It was strange to see a table of students among government employees, but the food there was very cheap!  It was definitely a better alternative then that school canteen.

Sometimes when we were hot and sweating after playing football in school, we would purposefully walk through the air-conditioned Hilton Hotel on the way to Central Station.  Occasionally we got told off by the hotel staff for being a nuisance so we stopped after a while. 

Later on we found we could get air-conditioning via Battery Path/Standard Chartered Bank/Prince's Building/Alexandra House/Central Station.  It made the journey home a lot more comfortable in summer.

 

Here's a wild guess:

When I searched on Google, I see the Chinese name for the previous building on this site, Beaconsfield Arcade, was 柏拱行. I guess it was the transliteration of the English name into something that sounded similar in Cantonese: 'Paak Gung Hong'.

Then when it was time to choose a name for the replacement building, the request probably went along the lines of "Give us something that is recognisably connected to the old name, but also recognisable as a new name. And if you can give it a bit of meaning too, so much the better".

So "Paak Gung Hong" became "Gung Pak Hong"!

Regards, David

My dad (and his business partners) used to run the restaurants for the Royal HK Auxilliary Police Officers Mess on the 3rd floor.  2 of the restaurants were open to the public, and my dad and I got to know customers from the nearby offices (e.g. GIS upstairs) -- some we're still in touch with.  :-)

Hi there,

One of my uncles told some haunted stories back in the 1970's about this building saying:

1.    You may hear typing sound of mechanical typewriters in late night somewhere, but there wasn't any traces of anybody around;

2.    Sometimes when one was walking along a certain corridor they would experience an unknown force, pushing them sideways;

I have no idea if he had made them up or not.

Thanks & Best Regards,

T