115 Waterloo Road [????- ]

Submitted by Admin on Tue, 02/25/2025 - 02:34
Current condition
Unknown

Deborah Jiang writes that before WW2 this was the home of Kwan Chee Woh, Nancy Kwan's grandfather, but that during the Japanese occupation it was used as the Kempeitai HQ in Kowloon.

Currently the site is used by the Primary Sections of the Kowloon True Light School & Middle School.

I don't know if any of the pre-war buildings have survived.

Photos that show this Place

1940s
????

Comments

It looks as though the original house might still exist as part of the school.

If you look at the old aerial images (HKmaps.hk - 1949), the original house was located centre of the plot. By 1963 the newer section of the school had been attached to the west side of the plot, but the house remained. The current version of the school looks to have kept the older house and simply absorbed it into the whole site.

You can see the arched windows on the school website. I postulate that these were originally the front verandah of the house but have been sealed up to create part of a room. There are quite a few "original" properties in Kowloon Tong that have undergone similar external changes but the basic shape and design of the original house can still be discerned.

Philk, your inference seems correct! the original house appears to have been preserved and integrated into the school.
 

115 Waterloo Road
115 Waterloo Road, by Alan Ho
115 Waterloo Road - Kowloon True Light School (Primary Section)
115 Waterloo Road - Kowloon True Light School (Primary Section), by Alan Ho

Harrison Forman took some photos of the tennis courts at Kowloon Tong Club in 1940/41 here There are some buildings in the background but they are not clear to see or easily identifiable.