Lei Yue Mun Barracks / Lei Yue Mun Holiday Village [????- ]
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Submitted by David on Tue, 2014-05-06 18:06
Current condition:
In use
Photos that show this place
 1902 |
 1918 |
 1925 |
Comments
Comparing the photo from 1902
Comparing the photo from 1902:
with the one from the 1920s:
The Barracks block in the center was extended to the left at some point between the dates of the two photos.
Lei yue mun history
There's a nice heritage assessment impact report here, mostly about block 3 but with a good history of the site http://www.amo.gov.hk/form/HIA_Report_LYMBLK3.pdf
Lyemun Cemetary
Anyone know anything about this Cemetary?
The only old, disused cemetery now left intact is the one out at Lyenun where members of the military were buried many years ago.
Source: Old Hong Kong by Colonial Vol 1
what I remember about this barrack
I attended Salesan School nearby between 1962 and 1966. When I day dreamed (which I did quite often) I looked out the classroom window and gazed at the buildings in the barrack, and the strangely shaped trees on the wind swept ridge line. On the slope below the barrack at various locations, there were mysterious small white buildings/huts, which my classmates called ghost houses. I hope someone can tell me what they were used for.
Huge miltary vehicles went up and down Chai Wan Rd very often. These green monsters went very fast and their engines backfired a lot when going downhill, making very loud bangs every few seconds. After some time, I could tell, from inside the classroom, the position of such a vehicle based on the bangs and the loud humming of the tires!
The soldiers drove these vehicles downhill as if they were race cars, testing the limits of their manoeuvrability. One drizzly day in perhaps 1965, one of them skidded while negotiating the curve near A Kung Agam Rd, spun anticlockwise (but didn't overturn, proving how well designed they were) and crashed tail first into the wall near the school driveway. We were having lessons at that time, but according to a teacher, a wounded soldier ended up lying on the pavement outside the vehicle. One teacher went outside and held an umbrella over the wounded soldier, who did not appreciate this. He asked in Cantonese, "關你乜野事呀?" (Somewhat equivalent to "This is none of your business.") Subsequently our teacher kept using this as an example of how "uneducated" people would behave. "We were trying to help him, yet he swore at us," he said. (Somehow, I suspect that the soldier was not trying to be rude. Soldiers are trained to be tough, and they probably do not appreciate being treated too kindly.)