Are you sure this is the same property as in the other images? It looks to be a different property altogether. Perhaps it is the view to the north from the rear of No.11, so we are looking at the rear of one of the houses located on Somerset Road?
Phil
Edit: this question was in response to the original description that said it was the rear of the property. The description has since been changed.
Yes, that threw me off as well, but all the photos I've posted so far were labelled as the Suffolk Road family home. Haven't quite worked out the mystery yet. I've been scrutinising the photos further, and my best guesses are that either there's more than one building on the premises, so this is the back one (the land lot is thrice as deep as it is wide, and the family had 8 grown children and some grandkids sharing the space), or that the front of the house was altered after purchase and this is photo is how it looked originally. The latter is a possibility, as there are only two shots from the earliest album where the house looks like this, and all the subsequent photos from later years show the fancier metalwork.
The mystery has been solved. Having spoken to family members who remember the house, it seems this photo shows the house in its original state as purchased. Sometime between 1940 and 1947ish, the vertical iron bars were removed and an enclosed verandah was added onto the front, with the angular and more ornate ironwork seen in other photos. I've updated the photo description to include this information.
Thanks for the explanation, Nina. This makes sense, because it looks like we can see the pavilion's patio at the bottom left of the image.
I have a particular interest in this property because my mother-in-law is a resident at the old peoples' home that currently occupies the house. I will try and get some modern day photos this weekend for comparison. It's possible the current building is the original one but with extensive modifications, as with many other of the old houses in Kowloon Tong.
Yes, I think there's a good chance some of the 1940s building is buried under there somewhere. From what I can glean from Google Earth, the asymmetrical front shape of the current main building roughly matches the footprint of the structure from the 1940s, and the size and shape of the perpendicular back building, with a protruding rooftop structure, matches what I can see in my photos. The whole left side of the property seems to have been altered, though; there was once what looked like a little rock garden/pond area just in front of the pavilion (facing north) and then a tree and bush-lined path leading to the back left corner, where I think the mui tsai quarters were. There was also an open courtyard between the main building and the perpendicular back building, which has now been built over (and which, by the way, was said to be haunted). I'm afraid I can't post all of the photos in my possession, as most of them prominently feature the owner's family members, who don't wish to be identified, but I'll try and find a few more shots that show other angles of the property without intruding too much on privacy.
Comments
#11
Hi Nina
Are you sure this is the same property as in the other images? It looks to be a different property altogether. Perhaps it is the view to the north from the rear of No.11, so we are looking at the rear of one of the houses located on Somerset Road?
Phil
Edit: this question was in response to the original description that said it was the rear of the property. The description has since been changed.
Hi Phil, Yes, that threw me…
Hi Phil,
Yes, that threw me off as well, but all the photos I've posted so far were labelled as the Suffolk Road family home. Haven't quite worked out the mystery yet. I've been scrutinising the photos further, and my best guesses are that either there's more than one building on the premises, so this is the back one (the land lot is thrice as deep as it is wide, and the family had 8 grown children and some grandkids sharing the space), or that the front of the house was altered after purchase and this is photo is how it looked originally. The latter is a possibility, as there are only two shots from the earliest album where the house looks like this, and all the subsequent photos from later years show the fancier metalwork.
Hello again Phil, The…
Hello again Phil,
The mystery has been solved. Having spoken to family members who remember the house, it seems this photo shows the house in its original state as purchased. Sometime between 1940 and 1947ish, the vertical iron bars were removed and an enclosed verandah was added onto the front, with the angular and more ornate ironwork seen in other photos. I've updated the photo description to include this information.
House
Thanks for the explanation, Nina. This makes sense, because it looks like we can see the pavilion's patio at the bottom left of the image.
I have a particular interest in this property because my mother-in-law is a resident at the old peoples' home that currently occupies the house. I will try and get some modern day photos this weekend for comparison. It's possible the current building is the original one but with extensive modifications, as with many other of the old houses in Kowloon Tong.
re: House
Hi Phil,
Yes, I think there's a good chance some of the 1940s building is buried under there somewhere. From what I can glean from Google Earth, the asymmetrical front shape of the current main building roughly matches the footprint of the structure from the 1940s, and the size and shape of the perpendicular back building, with a protruding rooftop structure, matches what I can see in my photos. The whole left side of the property seems to have been altered, though; there was once what looked like a little rock garden/pond area just in front of the pavilion (facing north) and then a tree and bush-lined path leading to the back left corner, where I think the mui tsai quarters were. There was also an open courtyard between the main building and the perpendicular back building, which has now been built over (and which, by the way, was said to be haunted). I'm afraid I can't post all of the photos in my possession, as most of them prominently feature the owner's family members, who don't wish to be identified, but I'll try and find a few more shots that show other angles of the property without intruding too much on privacy.