The Canton Villages Mission originated in New Zealand and operated in China from 1901 to 1951. During that time it sent about 50 missionaries to China. As it was not economical for them to keep returning home for holidays each year, missionary societies operating in China sought somewhere closer to China to escape the sweltering summer heat of the interior. The island of Cheung Chau was settled on. It offered all the advantages of The Peak of Hong Kong for a fraction of the cost - isolation, cool breezes, and extensive views. Cheung Chau actually had its own Peak.
In 1909, building plots and labour were cheap on Cheung Chau, and there was a flurry of building. The CVM owned at least four houses for their missionaries there, and this house was one. (European Houses #IL10, #9 and #10).
I have not been able to identify this one*, but it is similar in build to House #28. Sturdily built of granite blocks, it has a concrete ridge on the roof and wooden shutters on the windows and doors, top-hinged, against the sun and the typhoon season. It has a verandah on the sunny side.
During the war, the CVM houses were destroyed, robbed by the local population for wood for fuel and bombed by the Japanese as being western-owned.
The CVM wound up in 1951 after all its missionaries were expelled from China when the Communists came to power in 1949.
*Is that Lamma Island in the distance? We're possibly on the eastern side of the island.
Source: The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand - 'The Canton Villages Mission'
Photos: Presbyterian Research Centre