Current condition
Demolished / No longer exists
Date completed
(Day, Month, & Year are approximate.)
Date closed / demolished
(Day, Month, & Year are approximate.)
Wylie Court is the four-storey, T-shaped, black & white building at the bottom right corner of this photo:
The dates are a guess. The building is shown on sheet "1:600 179-SE-15 (Ed 1967)" at https://www.hkmapservice.gov.hk/OneStopSystem/map-search#, but not on sheet "1:600 179-SE-15 (Ed 1959-08)". They don't have the maps from the intervening years, so I've split the difference and guessed it was completed in 1963.
Centamap says the current building on the site (also named Wylie Court) was occupied in August 1985, so I've allowed a couple of years to build it.
Photos that show this Place
1962
1962
1964
Comments
Wylie Court
From some newspaper records, the black-and-white colour first-generation Wylie Court (with a Chinese name “蕙園”) was a government staff quarters with nine flats and was completed in 1962, bearing the address of No. 15 Wylie Path. In 1981, the government invited tender for re-developing the site into five blocks of residential property providing 200 flats, 120 of which (three blocks) would be handed over back to the government as civil servant quarters. Tak Wing Investment (Holdings) Limited was awarded the contract and the new Wylie Court (Kowloon Inland Lot no. 10658) was completed in 1985.
My Family Lived at Wylie Court (1985-)
My family moved in to Wylie Court from Grand Court, Ho Man Tin Hill Road in 1985. I had lived in Grand Court from about 1982, leaving to go to school in New Zealand in 1984.
I think we lived on the 12th floor, and there was a swimming pool which my sisters enjoyed in the warmer months; my father enjoyed playing tennis in the tennis court.
There were regular helicopter landings on the field nearby, attended by medical personnel from the nearby British Military Hospital. My father was treated for broken vertebrae at British Military Hospital, having arrived by Jetfoil from Macau after sustaining a back injury.
My family left to come back to New Zealand in 1987, if I remember correctly.
My father was an architect with the Housing Authority. He died in 2017. We all have fond memories of Hong Kong, in the 1980's.
Wylie Court
Wylie Court was occupied by mainly HK government families. I lived in Wylie Court in the top floor flat nearest the camera with my family from 1963 to 1965. I can remember the drought of '63 or possibly '64 when we were rationed to 4 hours of running water every 4 days. I think we had water in the late afternoon and evening and when the taps were turned on the water came out a dirty brown colour for a few moments before clearing. Everyone would shower, wash and so on whilst the water ran and then we would fill the bath, buckets and so on to keep us supplied with water after it was turned off. Water from the bath was used as drinking water but had to be boiled for a minimum of 4 minutes. As a kid it was great - what an excuse not to wash! I believe the deoderant makers did a roaring trade during this time! We had it relatively easy compared to many who had to carry their water from standpipes in the streets to their accommodation. Ironically I seem to remember that the flat area behind the flats was in fact a reservoir serving Kowloon.
1963 drought
There is an article about the 1963 drought. Water rationing started on 2nd May 1963 and they gradually reduced the frequency of water supply. On 1st June, the "4 hours of water supply every four days" scheme began until 27th May 1964. It took approximately one year.
https://industrialhistoryhk.org/hong-kong-water-supply-the-1963-water-f…