Pokfulam Filter Beds / West Point Filter Beds [????- ] | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Pokfulam Filter Beds / West Point Filter Beds [????- ]

Current condition: 
Unknown

These filter beds were built at the end of the Pokfulam Conduit that brought the water round from the Pokfulam Reservoir.

An 1889 map labels them as the "West Point Filter Beds", but 20th Century maps (eg 1905, 1924) show them as the "Pokfulam Filter Beds". On those later maps, the "West Point Filter Beds" name is attached to the newer set of filter beds built where the University's Centennial Campus is today.

Photos that show this place

1889
1910
1923

Comments

On the 1936 map the filter beds above HKU are referred to as West Point and the newer ones on Pok Fu Lam road are called Elliot

Good point - I just checked the maps at http://www.hkmaps.hk/mapviewer.html, and the names were still inconsistent in a series of maps dated 1945:

hkmaps ID Title for lower filter beds (today's Centennial Campus) Title for upper filter beds (near today's Kotewall Road)
1945 Filter Beds Filter Beds
1945.1 not labelled not labelled 
1945.2 not labelled not labelled
1945.3 Elliot Filter Beds West Point Filter Beds
1945.4 Elliot Filter Beds West Point FIlter Beds
1945.5 West Point Filter Beds Filter Beds

So these maps aren't a reliable source for what the beds were called in a given year. More detailed government maps or the annual PWD reports might give a clearer picture.

We could not help noticing the filter beds at the western end of HKU's campus as we crossed over them.

Are they still functioning or have they been left as a historic feature?

The modern government map labels them as a "Service Reservoir".

I'm not sure if any of the old filter beds are still in use. We recently added photos of the old Bowen Road Filter Beds, but that was converted to a reservoir, sometime in the early 1950s. I guess the techniques to purify water changed, and the old filter beds fell out of use.