HONG KONGGuests wallowing in the luxury of the Peninsula Hotel used to look out at a colonial mansion atop a neighbouring hill with some puzzlement. Why, when land was being reclaimed for construction from the harbour all around the Kowloon Peninsula, was a low-rise building in an overgrown leafy spot with views across to Hong Kong Island, surrounded by a forest of cranes constructing towers, allowed to go unmolested?
The brick-tiled building, with its deep-set verandahs from the days before air-conditioning, was Hullett House, formerly the headquarters of the Marine Police and built for them in 1881. The main house, stable block and a former fire station and crew quarters at the base of the hill were all under preservation orders and so escaped the wrecking ball. Long abandoned, the site has now been renamed 1881 Heritage and transformed into a mixed shopping complex and boutique hotel with five restaurants that manages to be at once redolent of colonial Hong Kong and of the local obsession with brand-name gewgaws.
From their hilltop viewpoint the Marine Police had a 200-degree view of the harbour, and their own dock down at its wave-lapped base. The sea was moved a block away behind a cultural centre built on reclaimed land many years ago and the front part of the hill has now been sculpted to provide an easy, escalator-assisted journey up past Chanel, Vacheron Constantin and similar boutiques to the restored mansion.
Just as the police kept an eye on the harbour, so the shipping stared back, mainly at the circular white tower atop which a two-metre-wide metal ball was made to slide downwards at exactly 1 p.m., enabling ship captains to reset their chronometers. The tower now stands on a little promontory of its own, and a modern mechanism lets the ball drop at the right time.
The nearby cannon was once used to gain mariners attention for warnings of approaching gales, the hoisting of typhoon warning flags (whose odd shapes now appear as insets on all Hong Kongs television channels when necessary) and of anticipated wind shifts that might drive ships ashore on the Peninsula or the Island itself.
Tables occupy the shade beneath green awnings outside the ponderous wooden doors of the stable block, now converted to a bar and grill. The high-ceilinged Mariners Rest bar in the main building has its original fireplace and behind it the jail cells are still intact and open for viewing. Rowdy drunkenness here would be ill advised.
A courtyard at the rear sports the pigeon lofts used for the state-of-the-art communications in the late 19th century. Tables from the Loong Toh Yuen restaurant occupy one side, but a careful recreation of ChinoiserieWestern adaptation of Chinese themesmakes its woody interior with its crackle-pattern screens perhaps the best choice for afternoon tea or subtle, up-market dim sum, right in the heart of the city yet hidden away from its buzz. The Marine Police must regret their move.
For more information on Hullett House, go to hulletthouse.com.
Peter Neville-Hadley is a member of the Meridian Writers Group.
