Clean-up ordered at dilapidated gatehouse
The stone gatehouse of the historic Old British Military Hospital, a neglected structure on a heritage site in Mid-Levels, is to be cleaned and emptied of rubbish.
A Food and Environmental Hygiene Department spokeswoman said it had told its cleaning contractor to tidy the place and avoid causing damage, and said it could no longer use the building.
The department's response came after the South China Morning Post reported on Monday that elements of the 103-year-old hospital building, a grade-one historic site, had fallen into a dilapidated state.
The stone gatehouse was full of rubbish and showed signs of internal water leaks. And the upper part of a stone pillar at the entrance, at the junction of Borrett and Bowen roads, had disappeared.
The issue also drew the attention of Central and Western district councillor Tanya Chan, who visited the site yesterday.
'I am going to bring the issue to the council meeting agenda next month. We have to monitor government departments in using and maintaining the site.
'It is so disrespectful of the FEHD to use the historic block to store rubbish,' Chan said. She will write to relevant departments to express her concern.
Although the main block of the Old British Military Hospital was given the grade one rating by the Antiquities and Monuments Office in December, the entrance pillars and the gatehouse were not included in the graded boundary.
The antiquities office said it later received a suggestion from the public that the two items should be protected. The office said the pillar had been in its existing condition for a number of years, according to photographic records from the 1980s.
The three-storey, red-brick building, opened in 1907 and built in the Edwardian neo-classical style, was used to treat wounded soldiers and sick British prisoners of war during the Japanese occupation. It became redundant in 1967 with the opening of a new British Military Hospital in Kowloon.
The hospital now houses three non-governmental organisations - Mother's Care, Helping Hands and the Carmel School. The Government Property Agency is responsible for leasing out the government-owned site.
Under the antiquities office's monitoring system for government-owned heritage sites, office staff inspect the conditions of buildings that are declared monuments at least once a year.
For graded buildings, the antiquities office relies on the departments that manage the sites to alert it if there is a need to maintain or protect the structures.
Slice of history
The hospital treated the sick and wounded during the Japanese occupation
Number of years the three-storey, red-brick building has been at the site: 103
