Mobil Oil Tank + Li Chai Kok Hospital .jpg

Does anyone know what the substantial three-storey white building was, roughly in the middle of this photo just above Castle Peak Road? Would this have been part of the original Lai Chi Kok hospital buildings? 

Greetings, and Hi Liz.  This may help - the 1956 map indicates that the buildings on this hillside were part of the hospital.

But there is a small doubt.  On this map, the orientation of the buildings appear not to match well relative to the oil storage tank.  The alignment of Castle Peak Road is not as precise as in the photo or in the 1952 map.  So I wonder if the label includes the three-storey building.  Regards,  Peter

1956 map - https://gwulo.com/taxonomy/term/478/places-map#16/22.3359/114.1398/Map_…

1952 map - https://gwulo.com/jubilee-buildings?a=1#16/22.3379/114.1419/Map_by_ESRI…

Hello Peter, thanks for your info. I was also initially confused by the differences in the photos. I've just been reading the 2017 research study (here: http://www.jtia.hk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/lw_paper_eng_120.pdf), which contains a site map on page 59, clearly identifying the building in question. According to the accompanying text, it appears to have been the Doctors' Quarters for the hospital. It was apparently demolished in 1968 when Castle Peak Rd underwent alterations.

Hi Klaus, thanks for the extra photo. it certainly looks like the building was still there when it was taken. Can the photo definitely be dated to 1976 rather than the late 1960s? If so, the demolition date given in the research paper (1968) must be incorrect.  Cheers, Liz

Edit: I've now found an identical photo to yours, also in the 2017 research report (on page 54), which I had missed when skimming through earlier. It's dated 1975 and the source is cited as the Government Records Service. I'll see if I can find some more information to confirm when Castle Peak Rd was realigned.

Hi everyone, I came across this photo a few times in the past when I was searching for places where I used to live in Hong Kong. My father was a senior prison officer and every three years we had to move to a different prison. Anyway, we live in that building from 72 to 74. There were 6 apartments. We were living on the bottom left and there was another English senior officer living on the right. Both middle apartments were vacant and there was one Indian doctor with a family living on the third floor on the right in 1974. The RMS Queen Elizabeth burned and sank in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour in January 1972, and I still remember watching it burn for a few days from there.

There was a Victoria women's jail in the vicinity, at the entrance to Butterfly Valley Road. Now rebuilt into Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre of the Correctional Services. A few scenes of Jean Paul Belmondo's 1965 movie Up to His Ears were shot there.

There's a page for that with a couple of photos at https://gwulo.com/node/60564

There was once a creek flowing down Butterfly Valley to the sea, now covered. The jail was on its west side. On the right side, there was a small village similar to Kau Wah Keng Village, called Wai Man Village. Behind the jail were some cottage industries with land leased from the government.

My uncle leased a plot for his firewood and charcoal business, converted it to a latex paint factory when people started to replace firewood with kerosene, producing Cherry brand and Lion Head brand latex paints. I used to catch grasshoppers and crickets on the huge front lawn of the jail.

Up to His Ears (original title: Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine 1965) screen caps can be seen here: https://hkmacaufilmtvlocations.blogspot.com/2017/01/les-tribulations-d-chinois-en-chine.html

Note: The interior scenes of the prison were instead shot at another location.

Wai Man Village was still there when I revisited the area in 2000.