Save these colonial ruins: activists urge preservation of old Hong Kong buildings near Graham Street
Fears for forgotten buildings as nearby Graham Street market revamped
A group of community activists is calling on the government to assess and protect a row of ruined buildings hidden near the Mid-Levels escalator and possibly one of the earliest settlements in the former British colony.
It has also discovered an old shop front, which it says offers a unique insight into trading in the city decades ago.
Covered in bushes, the area of No. 27-35 Cochrane Street in Central at first sight looks abandoned. But after walking through a narrow alley accessible only from nearby Wellington Street, a row of old brick walls is visible.
Central and Western Concern Group consulted a heritage restoration expert, Wong Hung-keung, who said the walls may be the remains of tenement houses that could have been built between the 1830s and 1911.
On nearby Peel Street, where the Urban Renewal Authority plans to demolish old buildings to make way for a residential block, the concern group found an old drainage channel and a storefront bearing the sign "Ying Kee Hard Coal". Wong estimated the sign was at least 70 years old and showed that coal was once traded in Hong Kong.