Dairy Farm Aberdeen Ice-Making Plant in 1958

WYIP
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Dairy Farm Aberdeen Ice-Making Plant in 1958

Back in the sixties and seventies, Dairy Farm had two ice-making plants on Hong Kong island, one in the East Point (Causeway Bay Area) and the other one in Aberdeen. In 1904, Dairy Farm expanded its business into cold storage, and two ice-making plants were built on Hong Kong Island for its own use and to sell ice blocks to other facilities. The one in Aberdeen was seldom mentioned, and so no one seemed to know where it was, and there are hardly any photos of this plant. I walked past this plant in the early seventies without realizing that it was a Dairy Farm plant. The plant had two relatively small warehouse-type buildings.  These buildings were located next to the Aberdeen Fish Wholesale Market on the Aberdeen side along the Aberdeen Main Road and right across the street from the entrance to the Aberdeen Chinese Cemetery. There was a short pier next to the plant, allowing the ice blocks to be easily loaded onto boats for transportation. 

The photo above was taken from the Gwulo Website (https://gwulo.com/media/22708). Per the website, the photo was taken in 1958. I put some markers on the photo to show some prominent landmarks.

A: Dairy Farm ice-making plant in Aberdeen

B: Downtown Aberdeen

C: Aberdeen Police Station 

D: Aberdeen Fish Wholesale Market 

When Aberdeen was developed into a major city center in the 1980s, this section of the road was widened and turned into a multi-lane highway.  The Dairy Farm ice-making buildings were demolished to make way for this effort. It was relocated to the Shek Pai Wan area, next to the two big abandoned transmission towers. I have been looking for a close-up photo of the Dairy Farm Aberdeen ice-making plant for a long time, but with no success.  Hope my post will arouse someone who might have a photo of the Dairy Farm Aberdeen ice-making plant to share with me and other Gwulo readers. 

Date picture taken
1958

Comments

Hi there,

It's present day location would be where Abba House towers resided.

I believe DFI sold their ice making business in Shek Pai Wan back in 2004.  The business there is running by another name, though traces of the faded Dairy Farm trademark could still be seen from the shelter side.

T

ps. It may be visible in this photo https://gwulo.com/media/49705/zoom

Enlarged photo of Dairy Farm Aberdeen Ice-making plant. , by WYIP

Thanks for letting me know that DFI no longer has any ice-making business in Aberdeen now.  

Also, thank you for the Gwulo weblink attached. The photo from the weblink is good, but appears not sharp enough when zoomed in to have a good shot at the plant. Looks like the photo was not taken at a high enough resolution.

Hi there,

I believe DFI still has in-house cold storage facilities for their retail business, probably in TKO as their depot is located there.

The other photo linked was likely taken on film decades ago, but with no information on camera and lens.  There are just too many variables that could produce grainy photographs.

T

ps. there is a map though

 

Former Dairy Farm Ice manufacturer plant and cold storage, by tngan

Photo of loading ice blocks onto a boat in the Dairy Farm Aberdeen ice-making plant, by WYIP

This is a photo from the Dairy Farm 1967 annual report. The photo was taken at the Dairy Farm Aberdeen ice-making plant, showing ice blocks being loaded onto the boat for transportation. Unfortunately, the photo was taken from the main gate towards the pier with Ap Le Chau as the background instead of from the end of the pier towards the boat with the ice-making plant as the background.  So, the photo does not tell much about the ice-making plant at all. 

With the workers unloading the ice blocks on the boat in the photo, it brings out some interesting facts on using a boat to transport ice blocks. I still remember the typical size of an ice block is about 5 to 6 feet long,  about 1 and a half to 2 feet wide, and about 3 feet tall. As shown in this photo, a hoist and pulley system were used to bring the ice blocks onto the boat. This is relatively effortless. However, if the ice blocks were to be transported by truck, the workers would have to work a lot harder. Back then, flatbed trucks were not normally equipped with an electric winch or an electric motor to operate a lifting platform from the back of the truck. So, the poor workers would install two long wood planks from the flat bed to the ground, use an ice hook to grip the ice block, and pull the ice block along the wood plank up to the flat bed. The poor worker must have exerted a lot of muscle power. Compared with loading an ice block onto the boat at the pier with the help of a hoist and a pulley system, this is no easy task. 

Hi there,

As the buildings wrapped around the towers, likely they were built a bit after the twin towers were erected.  The twin towers were up in mid to late 1960s.........

According to the development timeline you have already stated earlier, should be some time in the 1980s.  Maybe looking up aerial photos at HKMS 2.0 would produce more information.

T

ps.  Need a bit more time viewing the aerial photos.

Still going over HKMS 2.0.  However a 1972 aerial photo showed the site of the new ice house is empty.  I think its existance would likely be a bit later.  This same photo also showed the docks were in the process of being filled.

There is a wiki entry with a photo dated 1971 showing the empty lot with three towers.  So over the years one of the towers were demolished.

T

Hi there,

I had been looking at the towers from South Horizons and found the eastern one and those further up the slopes had been decommissioned while the western tower still seemed to be active, with power lines still connected along the way.

T

HKE towers at Shek Pai Wan, by tngan

 

HKE Towers, by tngan

 

HKE towers, by tngan
HKE transmission towers, by tngan

Not a location that is well known or photographed as most photos of Aberdeen are of the floating restaurants, main street and the boat population.

Noting the location in the main photo, I think the cream-coloured buildings with pitched roofs were Dairy Farm's Ice-Making Plant at Aberdeen. The name of the main building is too blurry to read. 

1963 Dairy Farm Ice Making Plant, Aberdeen, by moddsey

Thank you for the update on when the Dairy Farm ice-making plant was moved. There were a lot of changes to Aberdeen, and it looks like the changes began in the mid-seventies instead of the eighties, per your description of the 1972 aerial photo showing the waterfront area around the shipyard was being reclaimed. 

Thank you for locating a 1963 photo showing part of the Dairy Farm Aberdeen ice-making plant in its original location in Aberdeen. Compared with the 1958 photo I posted, it looks like the original 2-pitched roof buildings had been expanded into 3-pitched roof buildings by 1963. 

Hi there,

I found an aerial photo dated 1976 and the new ice-house building was already there.  Uncertain when did DFI move their shop though.

T

Thanks for the additional info on the old transmission towers. 

Thanks for bringing it up. I remember when the Ap Le Chau power station was demolished, the transmission towers at the western end of HK island were taken down soon (in the nineties) , like those along High West and the western side of Mount Kellett. Looks like some of the towers on the eastern side of Mount Kellett remain almost intact until now.

aberdeen power pilons, by Ralph Bishop

Looking at Google maps and some of the photos here,  we can see that the transmission pilons  at the harbour's edge are very specialized — This is the junction point  from under-sea cables to aerial cables.  Sometime prior to the demolition of the APC power station,  these undersea cables would have been  extended/rerouted to  the newer  Lama power station.   About  15 years ago,  HKE  laid new  under-sea cables  from Lama power station  to a new substation  behind  Residence Belair-Phase 1, adjacent to Cyberport.

 

 

Thanks for letting me know that both your grandfather and your uncle were employed by Dairy Farm. If they have any precious Dairy Farm photos, I wonder if you would consider sharing them with all the Gwulo readers by uploading them to the Gwulo website. Back in the sixties and seventies, I did not have a camera, and so I missed a lot of opportunities to capture all the memorable scenes around the PokFuLam’s Dairy Farm areas.

Thank you for the updated information on the new undersea cables from the Lamma Power Station to the Cyberport area. Looks like advances in power cable technology allow routing of cable underground instead of using the overhead transmission lines. I still remember when the Ap Le Chau power station was first built in the late sixties, the pristine hillsides in the Hong Kong Island western district were bulldozed for truck paths, allowing the transportation of heavy equipment to various transmission tower sites. This left a lot of rocky truck paths crisscrossing the Hill above Belcher’s, High West, and Mount Kellett.  To some people, the transmission lines, the towers, and the rocky truck paths were an eyesore. I believe that was the reason when the Ap Le Chau power station was demolished, the transmission lines and the towers were also removed by the nineties, restoring the hillsides back to their pristine condition.