Tiger Balm Gardens, or what's left of it. [1935-2002]

There are some great photos out there of TBG.

Tom Briggs on PBase

Tom Jackson on PBase

Here is a shot from the 50's though (courtesy of my deceased father-in-law, Gut Hui):

completed around 1935, sold in 1999 and demolished soon after:  A Century of Hong Kong Island Roads and Streets by Cheng Po Hung. 
the mansion is still there and I guess should be a separate place 

The wall murals represented Daoist visions of Heavens & Hells.

It was demolished in 2002, not 1999. You can still see the pagoda intact if you go to google earth and travel back to 2002.

Thanks Brandon, I've updated the demolition date from 1999 to 2002.

Just curious if it survived to this day as it would be such a pity if it didn't.

no, the only survivor of the redevelopment is the house and part of the front wall.

If it was LI Ka-shing who bought this place, chances are he saved everything and reassembled them elsewhere on his other holdings. I did try to poke my head into the Gardens while it was being redeveloped but there was a big security guy who shooed me away like I wanted to pinch something. I wonder how that mansion fit into his scheme of things? Have many happy memorie of the place. Thanks for the quick response.

I'm not sure that Li has ever had a reputation for preserving stuff. I guess it's not beyond possibility but I think the pagoda would have been painstakingly difficult to dismantle and preserve. He could easily have reconstructed it at his monastery in Taipo by now if he still had it.

Wiki does say that the AMO salvaged some of the statues and murals but doesn't say what plans they have for them. I suspect much of the Kuomintang/\Nationalist flavoured stuff ended up as landfill.

I wouldn't have a clue about dismantling large structures like that Pagoda other than it would have been a terrible loss to have it destroyed after it having stood there for ages. LI would have found some way to preserve it, no doubt. I'm surprised there was no write-up in the papers about where it ended up.

As for the stone statues depicting Chinese torture and punishment for the evildoers, I didn't expect LI to want to save all but a few. That's his business. I offhand can't recall the ones you mentioned as having political overtones but obviously they didn't sink in. Perhaps the AMO did rescue the lot I don't know.

1: No need to guess what's left, just join one of the captioned when it's re-opened after the temporary closure due to the plague, and see for yourselves.

I've been joining one of those, visiting the garden and different floors of the mansion.

http://www.hawparmusic.org/

2: Does anyone know the exact area that this TBG occupied before Rosedale Garden, Dragon Garden and the former building of Signature were built?

I'm wondering if the slope between Tai Hang Drive and 111 Mt Butler Rd also belonged to this Garden, or if it's part of the previous squatters area.

That slope is just facing Rosedale Garden and Tower 5 of the Legend.

Although mention is made here of the construction of an arbour, I think it refers to the building of the pagoda at Tiger Balm Gardens.

There is a replica tiger pagoda in Yongding, Fujian. Sadly not the relocated original from Hong Kong. This is in the ancestral village of the Aw family.

Link: https://www.abhfoundation.org/

Is it worth creating a separate place for the mansion seeing as that is still around?
 

Yes, that's a good idea - please go ahead.