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Research on Historical Buildings in Knutsford Terrace, Tsim Sha Tsui
Prepared by Dr. P. H. Hase (November 2002)
The land on the north side of Kimberley Road,
Tsim Sha Tsui, was originally sold as a number of
Garden Lots in 1875 (including Garden Lots 22
and 37, and some others) and was bought up
piece by piece during the late 1880s by the
Kowloon Land and Building Company (Kowloon
Land). It bought up this land mostly in 1888. The
land thus bought was converted to a single new
lot (K.I.L. 671) in 1895, and developed as
Knutsford Terrace, probably in that same year.
Kowloon Land developed Knutsford Terrace
as a row of sixteen small villas, on the upper side
of the road (which was accessed from
Observatory Road).
Descriptions survive of the late nineteenth
century European-style villas in Tsim Sha Tsui.
Most were two-storeyed, although a few of the
larger ones, were three-storeyed. Most consisted
of two bedrooms, side-by-side on the upper floor
(each opening onto a verandah running along the
front of the building, and each with a bathroom
behind). Some had a small third bedroom at the
back as well. Below there were also two main
rooms, side-by-side, a living room and a dining
room, with the entrance between them, leading
to the stairs to the upper floor. Behind each house
was a tiny courtyard, with, on the further side, a
servant’s quarter and a kitchen. These early developments were mostly not at that date on
mains drains, and nightsoil was removed each
night from the houses. The 1895 Knutsford
Terrace development was of villas of this sort.
Certainly the houses there originally had the usual
tiny courtyard and servants’ quarters and kitchen
at the back.
Knutsford Terrace and Tsim Sha Tsui in c. 1908
(photo provided by courtesy of the Hong Kong
MuseumofHistory)
The Knutsford Terrace development, like most
of the developments in this area, was on the
hillslope, with the houses standing well above
Kimberley Road, to get the maximum benefit from
the breeze. The area below Knutsford Terrace,
along Kimberley Road, which also lay within
K.I.L. 671, was developed as communal gardens,
shared by the residents of the sixteen houses
behind. Two large garden areas were developed,
with an access path up to the houses behind between them (this access path still survives
today). Part of these gardens was developed as
tennis courts, and other parts as flower-gardens,
with trees.
In 1923, the Knutsford Terrace property was
sold to the Wong family which decided to develop
the gardens in front of the Terrace for more
housing: these new terraces, along the Kimberley
Road frontage, were under construction in 1925.
A small area, however, was left as gardens, in
the centre of the new developments, this area
was built over in the early 1950s.
The Wong family divided the lot, and sold off the property house by house, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. After this house-by-house sale, most of the old 1895 houses on Knutsford Terrace were speedily demolished and rebuilt, the new premises having five to six storeys: in the last fifteen years these early post-War buildings have in turn all been replaced by multi-storey buildings.
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The surviving part of the 1895 retaining wall
below Knutsford Terrace |
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