Seven Sisters [c.1923-????] | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Seven Sisters [c.1923-????]

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Submitted by Peter on Sat, 2018-04-07 11:43
Current condition: 
Demolished / No longer exists
Date Place completed: 
c.1923-01-01 (Year, Month, Day are approximate)

These photos dated 16/02/1939 were taken by Lieut Peter Medd RN, Fleet Air Arm, HMS Eagle who was later killed in action.

They mainly show my parent's house, Seven Sisters, which was above North Point - hence TSAT TSZ MUI, an old village and I think now a road is also named the same.

Seven Sisters house in centre:

Seven Sisters 16 Feb 1939.jpg
Seven Sisters 16 Feb 1939.jpg, by Peter

 

Seven Sisters house in centre:

Seven Sisters 16 Feb 1939.jpg
Seven Sisters 16 Feb 1939.jpg, by Peter

 

Seven Sisters at bottom-right:

16 Feb 1939 TSAT TSZ MUI North Point HK.jpg
16 Feb 1939 TSAT TSZ MUI North Point HK.jpg, by Peter

 

I don't know what the other buildings are, namely the large one below the house.

There was no road as such to the house so cars were left at the bottom of the hill and they took sedan chairs to get up there.

Like many houses, it was ransacked by the Japanese and everything lost. These photos, and a few others, were recovered by the house boy from the swimming pool who kept them until my parents emerged from  Stanley and Sham Shui Po POW camps in 1945.

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Photos that show this place

1939
1939
1939

Comments

Submitted by David on Sun, 2018-04-08 17:50.

I didn't realise there were such large houses built in this area pre-WW2, so these are very interesting to see.

Please do you know the date that Seven Sisters was built? And did your family live there again after the war?

Submitted by Peter on Sun, 2018-04-08 21:23.

I don't know the construction date but I think the archtects were Palmer & Turner (who designed HSBC's third HQ) and the owner a Chinese businessman. My parents didn't return after the war as the property was a wreck. Instead they lived in Somerset Road, Kowloon Tong until moving to 119 The Peak in the early 1950's.

Submitted by David on Fri, 2018-04-13 10:37.

I knew the name was familiar, and just found where I'd seen it - it is mentioned in an obituary for James Dalziel that I posted last week:

In 1907 he left the sea and joined the staff of the Taikoo Sugar Refinery Company, later building the house known as "Seven Sisters” in the Quarry Bay District. On his retirement from the Refinery in 1924, he built a house "East Tinwall" in Dumfrieshire.

So it looks as though it was built between 1907 and 1924.

A search on Gwulo for "Seven Sisters" leads to page King's Road in 1936, which mentions:

IL 2320 "Seven Sisters" at back on hillside

So that gives us the Inland Lot number. A search for 2320 at HKGRO returns an announcement of a Land Sale to be held on 21 January, 1921, to sell this Lot of land. That narrows the dates the house was built to between 1921 and 1924.

I don't see any mention of it's completion in the PWD's annual reports, but will guess it was finished some time during 1922-23.