The Old Tai O Police Station is a former

police station A police station is a facility operated by police or a similar law enforcement agency that serves to accommodate police officers and other law enforcement personnel. The role served by a police station varies by agency, type, and jurisdiction, ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

. It is located on the small hill next to Tai O Ferry Pier,Revitalising Historic Buildings Through Partnership Scheme Old Tai O Police Station Resource Kit
/ref> at the south-western tip of

Tai O Tai O () is a fishing town, partly located on an island of the same name, on the western side of Lantau Island in Hong Kong. The village name means ''large inlet'', referring to wiktionary:outlet, outlet for the waterways (Tai O Creek and Tai ...

, which can be considered the most westerly point within Hong Kong.Brief Information on Proposed Grade 2 Items, pp. 388-389
The Tai O Cultural Relics Hotel operates in a social enterprise mode, with over half of the staff being Tai O or Lantau residents.

History

had long been seen as a strategic harbour area in the Hong Kong region. On 4 August 1855, British naval forces from the

China Station The Commander-in-Chief, China, was the admiral in command of what was usually known as the China Station, at once both a British Royal Navy naval formation and its admiral in command. It was created in 1865 and deactivated in 1941. From 1831 to 1 ...

defeated a pirate fleet at the

Battle of Ty-ho Bay The Battle of Ty-ho Bay was a significant naval engagement in 1855 involving the United Kingdom and United States against Chinese pirates. The action off Tai O, Hong Kong was to rescue captured merchant vessels, held by a fleet of armed war-j ...

. The police station was built in 1902 with a main duty of combating

piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

and

smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

prevalent in the neighbouring waters. On 17 July 1918, Police Sergeant Thomas Cecil Glendinning was shot to death by Constable Teja Singh in the Charge Room of the police station where Sergeant Glendinning and his family were residing. The

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

occurred following a hostage situation where Constable Singh had taken Sergeant Glendinning hostage at the station along with his wife and child. The incident was resolved after police located Constable Singh who had fled the scene and took his own life. In 1940, Detective Constable Hing Ip of the Tai O station was shot and killed by robbers while on duty at Tai O. During the

Japanese occupation of Hong Kong The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when the governor of Hong Kong, Mark Aitchison Young, surrendered the British Crown colony of British Hong Kong, Hong Kong to the Empire of Japan on 25 December 1941. His surrender occurred after Batt ...

, local resistance forces and triad members led by Wong Kei-tsai began a

operation in the area bringing food and salt to Lantau from Mainland China. The Tai O Police Station was briefly captured by local guerrilla forces before being retaken by the Japanese Army. The number of policemen stationed there increased from an initial six or seven to over 180 in 1983. The station was downgraded to a patrol post in 1996, and was left vacant in 2002. Higher on the same hill are the Tai O Barracks of the

PLA Hong Kong Garrison The People's Liberation Army Hong Kong Garrison is a garrison of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), responsible for defence duties in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) since the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. The garrison i ...

,Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch
July 2012 Newsletter, pp. 6-8
/ref> formerly known before the handover as Naval Coastal Observation Station, Tai O.

Architecture

The police station consists of two 2-storey blocks: a main block and an outhouse block linked by a footbridge at first floor level. The outhouse block has

Arts and Crafts The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...

architectural features.

Conservation

The Old Tai O Police Station was listed as a Grade III historic building in 1988, and as a Grade II historic building in 2009. In 2008, it was included among the seven buildings in Batch I of the Hong Kong Government's

Revitalising Historic Buildings Through Partnership Scheme The Revitalising Historic Buildings through Partnership Scheme () is an initiative launched by the Hong Kong Government, part of a broader policy of heritage conservation in Hong Kong. In order to preserve and put historic buildings into good use ...

seeking

adaptive reuse Adaptive reuse is the reuse of an existing building for a purpose other than that for which it was originally built or designed. It is also known as recycling and conversion. The adaptive reuse of buildings can be a viable alternative to new con ...

of government-owned historic buildings. In the end, the government accepted the redevelopment proposal of the Hong Kong Heritage Conservation Foundation to convert the building into a

boutique hotel Boutique hotels are small-capacity Hotel, hotels that provide more personalized service than typical hotels. They typically have fewer than a hundred rooms, and are considered more "trendy" and "intimate", often due to their location in urban ar ...

. The HKHCF was initially set up under the name Nice Brilliant Limited in December 2007, and changed its name in March 2008. The HKHCF has close ties to Robert Ng's

Sino Group Established in 1971, Sino Group () comprises three listed companies – Sino Land Company Limited (HKSE: 083), Tsim Sha Tsui Properties Limited (HKSE: 0247), Sino Hotels (Holdings) Limited (HKSE: 1221) – and private companies held by the Ng Fa ...

, and two of his children sit on its board. Legislator Fernando Cheung accused them of being a "one-man NGO" set up for business purposes rather than social service. The conversion project is planned for completion at the end of 2011, with an estimated cost of HK$64.9 million. The Old Tai O Police Station was transformed into the

boutique A () is a retail shop that deals in high end fashionable clothing or accessories. The word is French for "shop", which derives ultimately from the Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in anc ...

, nine-room Tai O Heritage Hotel, and is curated and managed by the HKHCF.

References

External links

Virtual visit of Old Tai O Police Station

Project description by the Hong Kong Heritage Conservation Foundation Ltd.

Tai O Heritage Hotel
Tai O

Defunct police stations Government buildings completed in 1902 Grade III historic buildings in Hong Kong {{coord, 22.25322, 113.853686, type:landmark_region:HK, name=Old Tai O Police Station, display=title

History

Architecture

Conservation

See also

References

External links