Modernisation to disturb history
Parts of historic foundations and an old underground toilet will be disturbed in revitalisation of the former Police Married Quarters in Hollywood Road.
According to a paper to be considered by the Antiquities Advisory Board today, three areas in the foundations of the historic Central School at the site will be affected by construction of an access to an underground display area.
Government architects and a consultant for The Musketeers Education and Culture Charitable Foundation, which won a 10-year contract to set up a creative industries hub at the site, said the affected areas were small, without giving details.
'We will collect and properly store as much of the impacted remains as practicable to cater for future replacement,' the consultant said.
The Central School was built in 1862 as the first institution to provide modern education in the city, and the police quarters were built after the second world war.
Another reminder of century-old architecture, a typical underground public toilet built in the first decade of the last century in Aberdeen Street, will have one of two entrances decked over to provide a footpath along the street. The toilet is proposed for a grade-three rating, which does not offer preservation but only photographic records.
Roger Ho Yao-sheng, a conservation writer who campaigned to push officials to study the site, said it was inappropriate for the tenant to suggest which parts should be preserved and removed. 'It is not up to them to introduce irreversible changes to heritage.'
