Murray House - Murray Barracks Officer's Mess [1846-1982]

Submitted by annelisec on Sat, 02/13/2010 - 16:53
Current condition
Demolished / No longer exists
Date completed
Date closed / demolished

Murray House was taken apart, put in boxes, and re-erected in Stanley twenty years later.

Later place(s) at this location
Bank of China Tower [1990- ]

Photos that show this Place

April 1847. View of the Bay of Victoria, Hong-Kong, and part of the Military Cantonment
1847
Victoria Harbour & Murray House
1856
View over Central by Marciano A. Baptista
1857
See more photos of this place

Comments

Jason Wordie mentions in his Streets: HK ISland book that when the building was reconstructed in Stanley, rather than reassemble it like a large jigsaw - a commonly held misconception - the builders actually just created a brand new concrete internal structure and hung the verandhas off it.

A friend told me that there were several boxes missing and so the building is a few metres shorter that the original,  and that many of the markings on the stones were rubbed off - so they did, indeed, have the piece much of it together jigsaw style.

Murray House in Central was rumored to be haunted as it was used by the Japanese to execute prisoners during WW2.

Over the years until the building was moved, there were ghost sightings and other unexplainable incidents reported on that site.

Hi there,

It was in the news back then.  That was when the Inalnd Revenue occupied the Murray House.  Some highlighted as reported:

-   Files would be moved around the premises in the evenings;

-   A typewriter originally being put on a secretary's desk had disappeared and was found in the desk drawer later.  The issue is, the opening of the drawer is a bit smaller than the typewriter;

After this incident, the Beaconsfield House was also being flagged as haunted.  Government Information Service (GIS), a Post Office and a public toilet occupied the house by then.  This I heard from one of my Uncles:

-   Lights would be switched on by itself;

-   In the evenings and upon a certain corridor, one would be forced to walk on a certain side of it even if you are not initially doing so;

-   weird sounds behind doors;

Oh well.........

Best Regards,

T