Thorpe manor,May road

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 02/16/2010 - 01:28

hi was just wondering if anybody had any photo's of Thorpe manor along May road from the 1950's?My mum Marion used to live there when she was younger and i was hoping someone had an old photo of it or maybe you remember her.Marion Reynolds formely Brown, daughter of Norman and janet Brown. Oh yeah and she is a twin. If anyone could help that would be great was hoping to get a photo in time for mums 65th birthday.

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Submitted by
Kanchana reynolds (not verified)
on
Tue, 02/16/2010 - 01:31

hi was just wondering if anybody had any photo's of Thorpe manor along May road from the 1950's?My mum Marion used to live there when she was younger and i was hoping someone had an old photo of it or maybe you remember her.Marion Reynolds formely Brown, daughter of Norman and janet Brown. Oh yeah and she is a twin. If anyone could help that would be great was hoping to get a photo in time for mums 65th birthday

 

thanks very much

 

kanchana reynolds

Was your grandmother a member of the Ladies Recreation Club on Old Peak Road?  If so, does your Mum remember it, or was she too young ?  There is a group on facebook with old LRC photos.

Aye Norman Brown, yeah he worked for Dodwells!!Did you know him? I'm afraid he passed away 6 months after i was born in 1987 so i never got to know him.

 

If you have any photo's or would like to chat in length my e-mail is at the top of the page.

Thank you for your reply though i didnt think i would get much in reply's.

Take care

 sorry, i did not know him as i only joined Dodwells in HKG in 1970. I was the last occupant of Thorpe Manor and actually moved out only a couple of months before it collapsed in the 1972 landslide. I have interior pictures of my flat #2 on the ground floor and used to have some of the building but have obviously misplaced them along with numerous other old HKG photos[if early 1970s are considered old].

I have asked some members of the Teen Cheong Club[Dodwells] if they have photos.

  Michael

This is Kanchana's mum Marion aged 65!  We came out to HK as babies after the war on the Empress of Australia in '46.  We lived in three places as I recall.  The top peak tram station which had only three flats the middle of which was ours then Hillcrest near the new peak school which my folks were turfed out of for noisy parties!  then the irreplaceable Thorpe Manor which I clearly do not have to describe to you.  My folks occupied the ground floor left as you enter - was that yours!  I can easily visualise it inside.  If ever you find interiors please let us have one or two. 

Thank you so much for clarifying the history of its demise.  You clearly got out just by a whisker! 

In the early 90s I took Kanchana as a baby and my husband to HK and I described to him what to expect on the train to the new territories!  I told him about the pig farms, the paddy fields, the duck farms and the water buffalo - what we saw was Sha Tin with its race course and a population exceeding that of Scotland's capital city!  Sha Tin in my memory was not much more than a village!  The top of the Peak and Sheko were the two places which it seemed to me had not changed.  Now I cannot remember whether Peak Mansions was still there then.  The new peak school however was familiar.

Thanks to Kanchana's efforts we have received a photo of Thorpe Manor which we of course treasure and I am going to get it framed for myself and my twin sister.

Thank you so much for your responses, memories and further contact with Teen Cheong.  I treasure them.

Sincerely     Marion (Reynolds)

PS If you send us your actual email address we would love to send you the photo.

 

 dear Marion,

  I guess it must be the same on the assumption that you mean when facing nthe entrance its the flat on the left. Those on the left were two bedroom, those on the right three bedroom. as a bachelor I only got two bedrooms.

my email address is fivestar@resurrection.com. a photo would be great and once I have your email I will send the interior photos I have.

rgds - Michael

I am sure a lot of us would like to see a picture of Thorpe Manor posted on the site.  Marion or Michael, could one of your pictures to this site?

This house in featured in the 1997 published book, Private Hong Kong-Where East Meets West, in a chapter titled Jungle Hideaway. The text says that it was built in 1925, and at some time not stated was an English school for 20 years. There are several pictures of the inside as decorated by the owners around the time the book was produced. The text says it took the movers two weeks to shift eveything up there and that the postman only delivers every other day. I believe these same owners used electric golf buggies for access as I remember them always being parked haphazardly around the entrance. In more recent years these have disappeared. When I walked passed the house last December and took a number of pictures, it appeared to be occupied, but by the owners or caretakers who knows.

IDJ

 

  Is the Historic listing #782, 3 May Road, the set of garages just before Catham Path/Peak Tram Bridge? If YES, they used to be the garages for the occupants of Thorpe Manor. I well remember when I lived in Thorpe Manor having to make a decision in the early hours of the morning when returning from the Back Bar/Godown whether to park in my garage and trudge up to Thorpe Manor or drive up risking scratches on the side. On friend even managed to jamb his car on the road up to T.M.

Thorpe Manor - I lived there as well, Marion and I remember you and your sister Helen well. In fact you both stayed with us for a while when your parents went back to the UK on leave. I could tell you apart but my mum had trouble and my Dad had no chance. I probably have some pix somewhere of our original home. My wife and I visited the new #1 May Road. Nothing like the old one of course. No character v a classic !! 

We lived in Flat #3 and, although we had one of those garages down on May Road, we never used it. In fact think the fahwong or some local family lived in it. But I could be wrong. 
As a kid I used to get the taxis (Mercedes 180Ds) to drive up. Managed to get most up without scratching - and when I was old enough to drive got very used to doing it day or night.  Yes - it was Chatham Path  to start with and then the road to Thorpe Manor carried on up where Chatham Path turned steep right.
The trickiest part was making sure you took enough width as you drove over the bridge (over the mullah) going up before the left hand bend afterwards. Fun times.
Yes - Dodwell’s owned and occupied by divisional managers. My dad ran the Wines and Spirits department and he was  the only  manager who had his own full sized bar attached to his private office. Guess where a lot of the other divisional managers would gather on a Saturday morning when their half day’s work was done!! Lots of liar dice and ‘close the box’ sessions accompanied over the years with gallons of pink gins !!