Finials from the Old Post Office Building in Central?
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Submitted by ACH on Mon, 2017-06-12 22:58
About five years ago we happened to visit the house and garden on the Peak owned by an architect. He happened to mention that, whenever an old building was demolished in the city, his team managed to 'liberate' the odd finial or two.
These finials at the entrance and to the side of the house:
Finails from an old building in Central.JPG, by ACH
closely resemble those in this building on the right:
Hong Kong Central 1930's.jpg, by ACH
Are they in any way related?
More finials from an old building in Central.JPG, by ACH
Forum:
I hope I've got the text &
I hope I've got the text & photos as you meant them to be. If not you can click "edit" to rearrange them.
Did the architect give any ideas about which years they collected these?
Finials from Central
I seem to remember he said they were rescued from buildings in Central torn down in the 70's.
re: Finials from Central
The simple, round finials in the "More finials from an old building in Central.JPG" photo look like the ones in the left foreground of the b&w photo. That's the General Post Office (Connaught Rd / Pedder St site) [1911-1977], so it matches the 70s demolition date you remember.
Finials
Well spotted David! According to this SCMP article ( https://m.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2162050/ho... ) a number of granite finials, along with a fireplace, green tiles and possibly other pediments were moved from the old GPO Building at the time of its demolition to Hilden, 5 Pollock's Path. The owners, Rosamond and Charles Brown, decorated Hilden with artifacts from other old buildings, including chandeliers from the old Hong Kong Club and fireplaces from Euston and the old Lane Crawford House.