Dairy Farm in PokFuLam in 1967 (part2)

This local church seems to have skipped my attention when I hiked along PokFuLam Road back in the late sixties and early seventies. Probably, it blended with the surrounding buildings so well. The only thing that gave it away as a church was the bell tower at the front of the building and the cross on the top. I have not been able to find any mention of this local church in any printed book in English or on the internet. The only exception is in a 1963 HK government-issued map where this location near the PokFuLam village was marked with the word “church”. Also, the connection of this local church to the nearby Bethanie Chapel was only through the caption of this photo in the Dairy Farm annual report, stating that it was a French convent settlement. There is very little printed documentation of the tie between Bethanie and this local church. The only clue is from a Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong Archive website presented in Chinese. The following is my translation of the history of this little-known church:

This local church was established by Father Joseph Gaztelu of the Missions Etrangeres de Paris (MEP) of France. In 1870 (other documents state in 1873), MEP started to build the Bethanie Chapel near PokFuLam village and later bought an old Chinese building nearby for printing work. The printing work (known as Nazareth Press) was established by MEP around 1884 to print religious materials for missionary work throughout Asia. (In 1894, MEP bought the nearby Douglas Castle and the printing work was moved there) In 1885, a small church was built beside the old printingwork building. A school facility was also added for children of the printing workers. Two-story row houses were built for the printing workers and their families. A monastery was also built in the complex, but the date is not known. This new residential complex, along with the church, the school and the monastery, was named TaiKooLau, laterally translated as TaiKoo buildings.  In 1896, this small church was expanded to a bigger one and became a public worship place for the locals. After about 40 years, the church became run down and a new church was built in 1938 and named Our Lady of Lourdes Church. This new church is what we see in the photo above (item A).  TaiKooLau stayed on until 1977 when this area was developed into a multi-story high rise (PokFuLam Garden). The church organization was moved to Wah Fu estate not far away but the church building, the school building, the monastery and the row houses were demolished. Regrettably, TaiKooLau should have been preserved as a historical landmark, but it seems that back in the late seventies, the priority was to develop HK into a modern city and preservation of buildings of historical significance was not considered important. 

My 1967 Dairy Farm annual report has a photo showing the entire TaiKooLau which I am going to post to the Gwulo website soon. The detailed history of this church is way beyond my time and if any historian has any additions and corrections, do chime in to make this piece of little-known history more accurate. Surprisingly, I came across a model of the TaiKooLau complex on YouTube. See the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSoPmMYsVq4&ab_channel=catholicvgoffice

It appears that I might not have answered the above inquiry correctly in my earlier reply. The question was about the “convent settlement” and my answer was TaiKoo Lau and the church. 

Reviewing the photo and the caption more carefully, I started to realize that the words “French Convent settlement” might not just mean the Our Lady of Lourdes Church alone but include the building next to it in the foreground of the photo. Further investigation reveals that in the early fifties, nuns from the same French religious order started a primary school for the local students in the TaiKooLau area. This primary school has a very interesting name. It is called “The Little Flower’s School”. The school has two buildings, both located on the other side of the church, and are not captured in the photo. 

Return to the two-story building next to the church in the photo. Most documents I came across identify that the building is “father’s quarter”. Maybe in the sixties, this building became the living quarter of the nuns running the primary school and so the caption “French Convent Settlement”. This, I have not been able to confirm.