Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Ride. The original is in an album covering old HK, prewar Cheung Chau and HK, the HKVDC at Fanling, and others, held in the Elizabeth Ride Collection at HKHP:
Date picture taken
1933
Gallery
Shows place(s)
Comments
Fung Ping Shan Building - HKU
Thank you for sharing this very nice aerial photo of HKU. One observation I have is that Fung Ping Shan building is now located on Bonham Road opposite to Hing Hon Road. But the aerial photo seems to show that its level was even higher than the HKU Main Building. Maybe this is due to parallax and the white curved strip below Fung Ping Shan was Bonham Road?
Also is there another aerial photo covering Hing Hon Road? That would be very interesting.
CM
HKU from the air
Hi CM,
I think it's just the unusual angle that makes Fung Ping Shan look higher, and agree that the curve in front of it must be Bonham Road. I'll ask if there are any other photos.
I've added a couple more "Places shown", visible below and left from Fung Ping Shan:
Elizabeth writes about the 'Kenneth' in the title:
Unfortunately I cannot give you the surname of 'Kenneth', but he was a member of the Hong Kong Flying Club which was based at Kai Tak in the thirties. I used to have the list (short), but like many other things I cannot put my hand on it at the moment. Perhaps one of your readers could help.
Regards, David
Fairlea and Church Mission House
The Church Mission House http://gwulo.com/node/32430 is bottom left of the photo, almost hidden by the new buildigns on the northside of Bonham Road
Above that, a corner of the Fairlea buuilding can also be seen.
Identity of Kenneth
My research indicates that the surname of the "Kenneth" mentioned here was probably "Beard." He was a pilot who came to HK in 1927 with the Fleet Air Arm, on his way to Shanghai to protect British interests in the city with "Sha-force" - part of the Shanghai Defence Force.
As things turned out, Sha-force stayed at Kai Tak with not much to do - mainly dawn anti-piracy patrols over Bias & Mirs Bays.
Whilst stationed there he met a lady named Peggy Beard who used to serve tea & wads to the servicemen & romance blossomed. He used to fly his seaplane over her family home in Shek O, dropping the mail & newspapers, & they were married in St. John's Cathedral on 18 Dec 1928.
Peggy's father was the famous architect Lennox Godfrey Bird, but that is the subject of a separate article.
HKU Main Hall (Loke Yew Hall), and the long-forgotten Foot Entra
This aerial photo pretty much captures the main hall (also called Lok Yew Hall) of HKU and its immediate surroundings. This main hall consists of the left and right office wings with the auditorium in the mid-section with slender roof construction. The auditorium has a stage at the back and a balcony above the entrance in the front section. During WW2, the auditorium was badly damaged, and it was rebuilt with some additions to the office wings. This photo shows the office wings had not been extended. So, it must have been taken before WW2.
The building in front of the main hall is the administration building. The main HKU campus is bounded by Bonham Road which you see part of it in the lower left-hand side of the photo. The campus is on the hillside of Bonham Road and the residential area is on the other. (The exception is St John’s Hall, a student residence, located on the other side of Bonham Road next to Hing Hon Road. This is the 3-story building on the far-left hand side of the photo also with black slender roof). Across the street from the Administration building is a 3-story apartment building. With the apartment wall so bright and clean, looks like it was newly built when the photo was taken. Next to the apartment is the Christian Mission House with the black roof top. This was there long time ago. It was finally demolished in the early fifties and in its place the classroom building of St Stephen’s Church School which I believe still stands. Next to the mission house, along Bonham Road, is a small single-story structure with a large black door. This “was” a car garage probably belonging to the Christian Mission. This structure is long gone.
Lesser known are the two foot paths to the HKU main hall, one along the right side of the admin building leading to the entrance at the intersection of Bonham Road and Pokfulam Road and the other along the left side of the admin building leading to a different entrance at the Bonham Road just across the street from St Stephen’s Church School’s main gate. These two foot paths are not very clear in the photo because of the heavy foliage along the paths. The foot entrance from the intersection of Bonham Road and Pokfulam Road seems to be more well known as this entrance was included in many photos of the HKU main hall. This foot entrance and the foot path were removed in the early seventies when the PokFulam Road/ Bonham Road overpass was built. The other foot entrance from Bonham Road was not well known to most people at all. This foot entrance began in a recessed space along the Bonham Road campus wall. This foot entrance and foot path were demolished in the late fifties when a new car entrance to the HKU Main Hall was built further down Bonham Road (right across Hing Hon Road) and the addition of a new wing to the administrative building. Of interest is that the recessed space stayed after this foot entrance was removed and was used as a parking space! Eventually, as part of the Bonham Road widening to accommodate the construction of the overpass in the early seventies, this recess “parking” space also disappeared.
I will post another link in Gwulo to show these two foot entrances more clearly on the map.