1881 Heritage

1881 Heritage is located at the southwestern tip of the Kowloon Peninsula . From the south it is bordered by Salisbury Road (the Hong Kong Cultural Center is located on the other side of the street), from the west by Canton Road Street (on the other side of the street are Star House and Harbor City ), from the north by the One Peking Road skyscraper and Beijing Street Road, from the east - Kowloon Park Drive ^[7] .

The headquarters of the Marine Police of Hong Kong was built in 1881-1884. Three-story building ^{[comm. 1]} combined the Victorian colonial style and elements of neo - classicism . Terraces with beautiful double columns kept cool even during the summer heat. In the south-east and south-west wings of the building were located apartments for family police officers. The headquarters complex included the barracks and the arsenal of the Maritime Police, the fire department, and there was a prison in the basements, where they kept the arrested pirates and smugglers. In the courtyard of the headquarters there was a dovecot, the carrier pigeons of which delivered messages to the ships stationed in the harbor ^{[8] [9]} .

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  View from above

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  Tower with a ball of time

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  Fire station

Also on the territory of the headquarters of the Maritime Police there was a tower with a time ball , which from 1885 to 1907 rendered ships entering the Hong Kong bay an extremely important service. Many of these ships arrived at the port after long voyages, during which their chronometers lost accuracy. The ball, mounted on the top of the tower, was manually raised every morning, and according to the Hong Kong Observatory, at 13.00 it went down. Ships in the harbor could calibrate their chronometers to the nearest tenth of a second by lowering the ball before leaving Hong Kong. In 1907, the service of the time ball was moved to a new tower on Signal Hill ^{[8] [9]} .

During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, the headquarters was given to the needs of the imperial fleet . Extensive underground tunnels and a bomb shelter were built below the lawn level, but after the war, the entrance to them was blocked, and they themselves were filled with earth for safety ^[9] . In the 1970s, the headquarters complex lost much of its territory — the slope was leveled to make way for the construction of Kowloon Park Drive. In 1994, the Marine Police Headquarters received the status of a as one of the four oldest government buildings in Hong Kong ^{[9] [10]} . At the end of 1996, the headquarters was moved to Saivanho area ^[8] .

Restructuring

In 2003, the government launched a project to develop tourism and preserve historical heritage. An open tender was announced in order to attract a private investor for the reconstruction and further exploitation of the former headquarters of the Maritime Police. A subsidiary of the Cheung Kong Group won a tender of six bids, receiving a land grant of a 50-year concession. The project was completed in 2009, after which the new commercial complex was named 1881 Heritage. The historic buildings of the Victorian era were preserved and rebuilt, in their place appeared a shopping center, hotel, exhibition hall and gourmet restaurants ^{[8] [9] [11] [12]} .

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  The main facade of the hotel

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  Shops along Canton Road

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  Shops along Canton Road

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  Trading arcade inside

At the corner of Salisbury Road and Kowloon Park Drive is the former Kowloon Fire Station (consists of the main block, built in 1920, and a two-story residential barrack, completed in 1922). In 1971, the old depot was closed and moved to Canton Road, where the Tsimsyach fire station is operating today ^{[13] [14]} . At the corner of Salisbury Road and Canton Road is the former signal tower, raised on a circular platform (around the tower there is a decorative garden connected to the street level by escalators and monumental stairs). Behind them, the terraces rise shopping galleries, above which the former headquarters building of the Marine Police tower. Behind the headquarters is a 30-story office tower One Peking Road, visually fitting into the stepped architectural structure of the 1881 Heritage complex.

There is a small courtyard with a fountain between the former fire station, signal tower and the terraces of shops located under the main facade of the hotel. The former main building of the police headquarters is housed in a boutique hotel Hullett House (海利 公館). Its ten rooms are equipped with the latest technology and executed in various design styles (imperial China of the XIX century, rural England and Chinese pop art). The hotel also has restaurants, bars and a souvenir shop ^{[1] [15]} .

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  Fire station

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  Fire station

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  Signal tower

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  Courtyard

Shopping malls include shops Montblanc , Van Cleef & Arpels , Piaget , Freywille , Breguet , Cartier , Tiffany & Co. , Rolex , Blancpain , A. Lange & Söhne , IWC Schaffhausen , Chopard , Alfred Dunhill , Vacheron Constantin , Roger Dubuis , Mikimoto , Emperor Watch & Jewelery , Nirav Modi , Vivienne Tam and Shanghai Tang ^[16] .

•   Wikimedia Commons has 1881 Heritage media files.

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