Boundary Stone at Magazine Gap Road

I've just written to the government's 'Antiquities & Monuments Office', to see if they can provide any further information.

MrB

I just wrote to these four government agencies via e-mail, 

Leisure and Cultural Services Department
Home Affairs Department
Antiquities and Monuments Office, Home Affairs Department
Civil Engineering and Development Department

See who has the answer in the earliest time.

If anyone else wants to write, here are the contact e-mail addresses: 

• Leisure and Cultural Services Department : enquiries@lcsd.gov.hk
• Home Affairs Department : hadgen@had.gov.hk
• Antiquities and Monuments Office : amo@lcsd.gov.hk
• Central Conservation Office, LCSD : conservation@lcsd.gov.hk
• Civil Engineering and Development Department : enquiry@cedd.gov.hk

 Antiquities and Monuments Office, Leisure and Cultural Services Department

made the reply as follow, this afternoon:

"We will get back to you shortly regarding the situation of the Boundary Stone."

Antiquities and Monuments Office: no further reply after 18 June.

Civil Engineering and Dept.: one reply on 6 July:
"We refer to your e-mail to CEDD on 18 June 2007 and the subsequent communication
of our Geotechnical Engineering Office with you regarding the captioned subject

We have carried out a check on the matter and would like to advise that :
(a)        Management and maintenance of the subject boundary stone are not under the
           purview of CEDD.
(b)        The subject boundary stone falls within the area maintained by private lot owner of
17 Magazine Gap Road.  Control of structures and works of private lots is under the purview
of Buildings Department."

Leisure and Cultural Services Dept. one reply on 10 July:
"Thank you for writing to the Leisure and Cultural Services Department on 18/06/2007. 
Please note that enquiries and complaints related to that department are now handled
by the 1823 Citizen's Easy Link of the Government.  The Highways Department advised
that your case should be handled by the Buildings Department.   As such, we have
referred your case to the Buildings Department for follow up."

Home Affairs Dept. one reply on 21 July:
"I refer to your earlier email to the Headquarters of Home Affairs
Department on 18 June concerning the captioned matter.  To facilitate
our further investigation of the boundary stone concerned, I should be
grateful if you would furnish me with more information about it, e.g. the
approximate location, when you found it missing, etc. please.  Thank you."

So I wrote to Buildings Dept. & Lands Dept. on 9 July.

I walked along the boundary in the Cuaseway Bay area on last Sunday week, and could
not any find any trace of new stone. Will continue the trace as I suspect that one may be
around Tung Shan Terrance / Stubbs Road.

Hi T,

 The bureaucracy is BIG:

http://www.gov.hk/en/about/govdirectory/govchart/index.htm

http://www.gov.hk/en/about/govdirectory/govwebsite.htm

Seems to me that I have to keep writing to departments, then to

bureaux, then to secretaries.  Or should I write to "Public Works Dep."!?

Cheers, (though not very cheerful regarding the stone)

 isdl

Home Affairs Dept. replied on 21 June, not 21 July.  My typing mistake.

Today's headline daily (free local tabloid):

http://www.hkheadline.com/news/headline_news_detail.asp?id=29614&section_name=wnn

1. They call it "Hong Kong boundary stone"
2. I suspect that the third picture belongs to  http://www.xanga.com/kk1688 and they fail to mention the photo credit.  They just change the aspect ratio by stretching it 125%

Thanks for keeping us updated of the news on the Chinese-language forums.

From the various messages and copies of emails posted, it seems the AMO was aware of the seventh stone. I'll be interested to hear their description of what's happened here, given their stated role.

MrB 

Yesterday, 19th of July, I received the following reply to the message I sent on 16th June:

Thank you for your email regarding the suspected  Boundary Stone of the City of Victoria.

You may wish to note that as half of the Stone was found embedded in a retaining wall under private lot, we have yet to ascertain whether it is one of the Boundary Stones of the City of Victoria.  The Stone was located on a private land.  We have advised relevant Government departments to consult our Office on any works that may affect the Stone since last year.

The stone was not removed by our office and we referred the case to relevant Government departments for investigation and necessary follow up.  We would also attempt to approach the owner of the lot for the whereabouts of the Stone.

[name withheld]
ACII(MR)1
AMO/LCSD

So, it is disappointing that it has taken them a month to send me what looks to be their standard reply on the subject. But at least it is a start. I have just sent back the following reply:

Thank you for your reply. Please could you help me answer two further questions?
 
Q1. Have the AMO been able to contact the owner of the lot yet?
 
The priority is to recover the stone before it is lost or damaged for ever. As you point out, the stone was located on private land, so the owner of that land should know what happened to it. At worst they can provide contact details for the contractor that performed the work.
 
Q2. What is preventing the AMO from identifying the Magazine Gap Rd. stone as one of the boundary stones?
 
There is strong evidence to support that the stone is one of the Victoria City boundary stones:

a. The stone was located where the boundary (ie the 700ft contour) crosses Magazine Gap Road
 
b. Paragraph 22 of the Director of Works' Annual Report for 1924 states: "The City Boundary, which for a considerable distance on the southern side follows the 700 ft contour has been defined from a point on the sea-shore at Kennedy Town as far east as Magazine Gap Road and boundary stones fixed at suitable points." One of those stones would surely have marked the end of the defined boundary (ie Magazine Gap Rd), in the same way that one marks the start of the defined boundary (ie Sai Ning St. in Kennedy Town).
 
c. The stone has the same shape and appearance as the other boundary stones.
 
d. Although most of the inscription on the stone was covered by the wall, it was possible to see part of the word "boundary", which also appears on the other stones.

Given this evidence, I am interested to learn what is preventing the AMO from identifying the stone as one of the boundary stones. Is there some other, conflicting evidence?
 
I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your support to preserve this part of Hong kong's heritage.

I'll let you know if I get any reply.

MrB

AMO is big.  I aslo received the following reply from them on 19 July:

Thank you for your email regarding the suspected  Boundary Stone of the City of Victoria.

You may wish to note that as half of the Stone was found embedded in a retaining wall under private lot, we have yet to ascertain whether it is one of the Boundary Stones of the City of Victoria.  The Stone was located on a private land.  We have advised relevant Government departments to consult our Office on any works that may affect the Stone since last year.

The stone was not removed by our office and we referred the case to relevant Government departments for investigation and necessary follow up.  We would also attempt to approach the owner of the lot for the whereabouts of the Stone.


*********
ACII(MR)1
AMO/LCSD

Besides this particular officer, I also received two more reply, from different officers as my case has been re-directed by Home Affairs Dept. & 1823 Citizen's Easy Link.

I also wrote to Lands Dept, Information Services Dept & Land Registry, expecting their reply.  Buildings Dept made the reply, denying any responsibility.

I received this reply today (though it doesn't answer either of the questions I asked):

Thank you very much for your email.  Our Office is taking follow up action for the situation of the boundary stone.  We are checking the whereabout of the stone.  We will inform you once we have the updated information.  In the meantime, please feel free to contact us if you have any other questions.

Thank you once again for your effort in preserving Hong Kong's cultural heritage.

Regards,
[name withheld]
ACII(MR)1
AMO/LCSD

MrB

"Does it matter that this boundary stone's been removed?"

Someone asked me that over the weekend. After all, it is just one little bit of stone sticking out of a wall that few people ever walk past. How many people even knew it existed?

It's true that this boundary stone isn't one of Hong Kong's greatest historic relics. But on the other hand we don't have that many relics at all, so why lose this one when it could so easily have been kept?

So yes it matters, in that it highlights some of the problems that put other relics at risk. These problems include:

Poor internal communication between government departments.

Eg On 16th Dec 2006, the Chief Curator of the Museum of History says 'You are perfectly right, there is another boundary stone at Magazine Gap Road and my colleague has already located it and taken phots of it.' (See comment #2 here)

Then on 24th January 2007 we find that the Lands department now consider there are seven boundary stones, including the stone at Magazine Gap Rd 'Please be informed that cleansing work to the seven stones has been carried out on 16 January 2007.' (See comment #4 here)

But on 19th July 2007 the reply from the AMO (Antiquities & Monuments office) is still saying 'we have yet to ascertain whether it is one of the Boundary Stones of the City of Victoria.'.

Poor communication between government departments and public.

This works both ways. On the one hand there are different, unconnected groups of the public that are keen to learn what has happened to the missing stone. But that means many messages sent to different government departments, so some departments receive messages that are not relevant to them, and I guess the AMO has to deal with many duplicate messages. Not very efficient.

Of course the reply wasn't that impressive either, with the AMO taking one month to send out a form letter.

Responsiveness.

It seems the stone disappeared some time between late May when this photo was taken and mid-June when we learned that it had disappeared. A speedy response was needed to have the best chance to recover the stone. The AMO were notified of the stone's disappearance on 16th June, if not earlier. On 19th July, their position was still 'We would also attempt to approach the owner of the lot for the whereabouts of the Stone.'

So what can we do to help prevent this type of problem in future?

Improve internal communication

Is there an way for departments to share information about these relics? eg A simple shared website where interested people can look up a relic on an online map of Hong Kong, view its status, and add comments about it?

Improve external communication

If that type of website exists, could the public be given access to it? Some information may be confidential and need to be hidden, but if we could see what work is underway, we wouldn't need to keep bothering the departments with emails.

Also when there are questions, eg about the history of a suspected relic, why not let the public add their comments too? As we can see from the interest in this issue, there are many knowledgeable amateur historians in Hong Kong that can contribute useful knowledge and research.

Respond faster

Well, the door is locked on the inside for that one. Hopefully the better communication mentioned above could free up resources to respond faster to the main problem?

Better protect the remaining stones

Inform land-owners if stones are on their land. It doesn't have to be a heavy-handed approach, more a "Congratulations, you're in charge of a piece of Hong kong's history", with a little background and a request to contact the AMO before any work starts that could damage it. It's easy to be cynical and say 'who'd care', but I think if it was posted on the notice board for residents to read, enough people would take notice and respond positively to make a difference.

Recognise them as monuments. From the Lands Departments' message (see comment #11 here), the remaining stones have no official protection. Give it to them.

Put a simple warning on the stones. Recognising them as monuments is great, making the contracting companies take more care to look after the stones and so avoid breaking the law. But... what's most important is to stop some over-enthusiastic workman from swinging a sledgehammer at the stone. I'm sure that in the Magazine Gap Rd case, at the end of the job the workment looked at the slope with pride, congratulating themselves on how they'd taken away that ugly pointy bit and left it all smooth and lovely!! So, have a warning in plain language fixed on or near to the remaining stones.

What do you think? Is it worth causing a fuss about this? Why? And what other simple steps can we take to help stop it from happening again in future?

MrB

The communication within department also matters. 

According forum.hh1977, they received a reply from Lands Dept. on 6 July saying that:“protection measures HAVE been put in place for the Wong Nai Chung Road stone. Highways Department IS WORKING with Transport Department on how to protect the Bowen Road stone” 

But, I received the following message on 10 July “The Highways Department advised that your case should be handled by the Buildings Department” 

Furthermore, a visit on last Sunday (22 July) at Wong Nai Chung Road stone couldn’t see any “protection measures”

A reporter from the HKET newspaper has been in touch with a few questions about this topic, and says there will be an article about it in today's newspaper. If you see it, please could you let us know what are the main points they cover, as I can't read the chinese :-(

Many thanks, MrB

Reader 'isdl' emailed us:

Page C5 of today’s (26 July) HKET:
 
HKET quoted information from various forums, including “Batgung”, “go2nature” & “www.xanga.com/kk1688”, interviewed Mr B & Mr Ting, ex-curator of Hong Kong Museum of History.
 
At the end of the story, it says something like: “the six remaining stones are not declared monument nor protected by any ordinance.  Will the remaining six stones follow the tragic footstep of number seven?  They are not eye catching but it is a part of Hong Kong’s history.  We lost so many and can’t afford losing any more.”

Thanks for your help with the translation,

MrB

I agree, that thing is an eyesore and totally irrelevant in Hong Kong. Not only is it a pointless relic of bygone years that should be removed, but a constant reminder of Britain's colonial rule. Its quite odd that it hasn't been replaced with a statue of Chairman Mao or something like that (considering Hong Kong people's avarice for gambling, fortune and materialistic gains I suggest a statue of Baphomet).

Having said that, there are numerous cenotaph around the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cenotaph) and although it is true that it is a reminder of British rule in Hong Kong, that "piece of stone" does serve one purpose that in itself is good enough reason to leave it where it is. That reason being that it is one of very few spots left in Central where there's some open air and you can see the sky without straining your neck. I suggest they plant some trees around it.