Gascoigne Road and Nathan Road (Hong Kong)

HK Girl Guides Association Gascoigne Road

Gascoigne Road () is a main road in

Kowloon Kowloon () is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. With a population of 2,019,533 and a population density of in 2006, it is the most populous area in Hong Kong, compared with Hong Kong Island and t ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, going west-east from

Nathan Road Nathan Road is the main thoroughfare in Kowloon, Hong Kong, aligned south–north from Tsim Sha Tsui to Sham Shui Po. It is lined with shops and restaurants and throngs with visitors, and was known in the post–World War II years as the Golden ...

Chatham Road South Chatham Road South and Chatham Road North are two continuous roads spanning from Tsim Sha Tsui to Hung Hom in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The road originally ran from Signal Hill to Hung Hom under No. 12 Hill by the side of Hung Hom Bay. It was later ex ...

through the head of King's Park, leading vehicles from West Kowloon to the

Cross-Harbour Tunnel The Cross-Harbour Tunnel (abbreviated ''CHT'' or ''XHT'') is the first tunnel in Hong Kong built underwater. It consists of two steel road tunnels each with two lanes constructed using the single shell immersed tube method. It is the earl ...

. Gascoigne Road Flyover () is a long flyover linking between Gascoigne Road and Ferry Street, passing through Yaumatei Carpark Building. Built in 1977, it is part of the

West Kowloon Corridor West Kowloon Corridor is part of Route 5 in Hong Kong. Bypassing existing surface roads in West Kowloon, it connects Lai Chi Kok Road in Cheung Sha Wan with the Gascoigne Road Flyover near Yau Ma Tei. The highway was built in 4 phases: *Phase 1 ...

History

The road was laid out after 1901 and named after

William Julius Gascoigne Major-General Sir William Julius Gascoigne (29 May 1844 – 9 September 1926) was a British Army officer and served as General Officer Commanding the Militia of Canada from 1895 to 1898. Military career Gascoigne was commissioned into the ...

, Commander British Troops in China and Hong Kong from 18981903. It was reported in 1908 that "All the roads on the owloonpeninsula are wide and lined with trees, and two in particular—Robinson Road [today's

] and Gascoigne Road—are noticeable by reason of their width" and "Gascoigne Road, which is 100 feet wide, runs right across the peninsula from Hung Hom, Hunghom to Yau Ma Tei, Yaumati, and skirts the King's Park, a large enclosure reserved for recreation, and the United Services Recreation Ground." The Fronde Memorial, a granite obelisk, was erected in May 1908 in memory of the five sailors of the French ''Arquebuse''-class destroyer ''

Fronde The Fronde () was a series of civil wars in France between 1648 and 1653, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. King Louis XIV confronted the combined opposition of the princes, the nobility, the law cour ...

'' who disappeared in the sinking of their boat near the Torpedo Depot, Kowloon, during the

1906 Hong Kong typhoon The 1906 Hong Kong typhoon was a tropical cyclone that hit Hong Kong on 18 September 1906. The natural disaster caused property damage exceeding a million pounds sterling, affected international trade, and took the lives of around 15,000 peopl ...

. Initially erected at the corner of Gascoigne Road and Jordan Road, the monument was relocated to

Hong Kong Cemetery Hong Kong Cemetery, formerly Hong Kong (Happy Valley) Cemetery and before that Hong Kong Colonial Cemetery, is one of the early Christian cemeteries in Hong Kong dating to its colonial era beginning in 1845. It is located beside the racecourse ...

in Happy Valley during the 1960s. The ''Fronde'' was later salvaged, repaired in the Hung Hom shipyard, and left Hong Kong in March 1907. It was active during World War I and was decommissioned in 1919. Gascoigne Road was widened in 1988 and the adjacent slope near the Queen Elizabeth Hospital was cut back. A 12m high rock-socketed caisson retaining wall was constructed to support the cutting.

Features

Northern side of the road: (from east to west) * Headquarters building of the

Hong Kong Girl Guides Association Hong Kong Girl Guides Association () is the sole Guide organisation in Hong Kong. It was formally established in 1919 though the first Girl Guides Company was formed in 1916. The association became a full member of the World Association of Girl G ...

(#8) * Club de Recreio (西洋波會) (#20). The Club was founded in 1911 by prominent members of the Portuguese community in Hong Kong. The present clubhouse was built in 1928. Grade III historic building.List of the 1,444 Historic Buildings in Building Assessment
(as of 27 December 2013) * YMCA King's Park Centenary Centre (#22) * India Club (印度會) (#24). The present clubhouse building was built in 1956. Grade III historic building. * Queen Elizabeth Hospital (#30) * Hong Kong Labour Tribunal (#36) * Old South Kowloon District Court (#38). Grade I historic building. * Kowloon Methodist Church (循道衛理聯合教會九龍堂) (#40). Erected between 1950 and 1951, it is the largest church building of the

Methodist Church Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...

in Hong Kong. *

Methodist College (Kowloon) Methodist College (MC or MCKLN, ) is a Mixed-sex education, co-educational Methodism, Methodist Grant School (Hong Kong), Grant School on Gascoigne Road in King's Park, Hong Kong, King's Park, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was established in 1958 by the ...

(#50). The campus includes the buildings of the former

Grantham College of Education The Education University of Hong KongUniversity title ...

, which was located at No. 42 Gascoigne Road. * Former access to an

air raid precaution Air Raid Precautions (ARP) refers to a number of organisations and guidelines in the United Kingdom dedicated to the protection of civilians from the danger of air raids. Government consideration for air raid precautions increased in the 1920s an ...

(ARP) tunnel. Near the junction with

. Southern side of the road: (from east to west) *

Gun Club Hill Barracks Gun Club Hill Barracks are barracks in King's Park, or in Jordan, Hong Kong formerly used by British Army garrisons during British colonial rule. The military began using the area shortly after 1860 when the British acquired Kowloon. The barra ...

* United Services Recreation Club (USRC; 三軍會) (#1). Opened in 1911 as a British military club, it is now owned by the

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...

, but administered as a limited company with a wholly civilian membership.History of the USRC
/ref> *

Diocesan Girls' School Diocesan Girls' School (DGS) (), and Diocesan Girls’ Junior school, one of the oldest girls' schools in Hong Kong and a well known secondary and primary school in Kowloon, HK, was founded in 1860 by the Anglican (Episcopalian) Church (Hong K ...

Eaton Hotel Hong Kong Eaton HK (), owned by the Great Eagle Holdings, Great Eagle Group, is a four-star hotel located at 380 Nathan Road in Kowloon, between Jordan, Hong Kong, Jordan and Yau Ma Tei, near the Temple Street Night Market and the Jade Market. History ...

References

External links

Google Maps of Gascoigne Road
* More details about the ''Fronde'' incident

* Information and pictures of the ''Fronde'' monument

{{Coord, 22.30897, 114.17089, display=title King's Park, Hong Kong Yau Ma Tei Roads in Kowloon Route 5 (Hong Kong)

History

Features

See also

References

External links