Surveying & Built Environment Vol. 22 Issue 1 (December 2012)

More documents

Recommendations

Info

sh blockhouses in Hong Kong Surveying and Built Environment Vol 22, 8-18 Nov 2012 ISSN 1816-9554 SBE 13
SBE 14 A Note on British Blockhouses in Hong Kong The blockhouse plan for Hong Kong is likely to have been of a ‘Circular “Rice” Blockhouse, Stone Filled Shields Earth Filled Caisson’. 8 This was the standard British Army Blockhouse at the time. Developed in South Africa by Major Rice of the Royal Engineers, it was built in huge numbers there during the South African War at the beginning of the 20th Century. Its big advantages were that it was prefabricated and could be delivered and constructed quickly and easily, and was relatively figure 2: Design of a British blockhouse cheap. It consisted of two walls of corrugated iron, separated by stones, with ready cut loophole positions, a single closable entrance, a wooden roof, and was surrounded by a trench, one side of which was revetted in stone. An outer wire entanglement was placed some 20 yards away. The roof was for weatherproofing only, it was not bulletproof. figure 2, based on a drawing in the Royal Engineers Museum at Chatham, shows the general design of the blockhouse. 8 The author does not claim to have enough evidence to say the Hong Kong ones were definitely of the Rice type, but they were the standard type at the time, and the few remains show distinct similarities: the diameter of the footprint is the same (about 20ft/6m), there is much uniform shingle (foreign to the area) in the immediate vicinity, and there are circular stone walls fronted by the remains of ditches (BH 22 at Railway Pass is a particularly good example). The only known picture of Hong Kong blockhouses (BH 24, 25 and 26), at the Hong Kong Public Record Office, is inconclusive. At the Scottish Regiments Museum in the UK the author tried to get the original of that photo, but they could not find it in their records.
Page 1 and 2: ISSN 1816-9554 w w w . h k i s . o
Page 3 and 4: Information All rights reserved. No
Page 5 and 6: SBE 4 Contents Editorial Articles A
Page 7 and 8: SBE 6 documents (Hong Kong Special
Page 9 and 10: SBE 8 A Note on British Blockhouses
Page 11 and 12: SBE 10 A Note on British Blockhouse
Page 13: A Note on British Blockhouses in Ho
Page 21 and 22: SBE 20 Reconstructing The Early His
Page 39 and 40: SBE 38 Good Property Valuation in E
Page 63 and 64: SBE 62 Modelling Gaseous Emissions
Page 65 and 66:
SBE 64 Modelling Gaseous Emissions
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
SBE 74 direct Geo-referencing and o
Page 77 and 78:
SBE 76 Direct Geo-referencing and O
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
SBE 88 Kadoorie Hill and footnote 4
Page 91 and 92:
SBE 90 Kadoorie Hill and Footnote 4
Page 93 and 94:
SBE 92 Definitions of Land Use Term
Page 95:
SBE 94 Definitions of Land Use Term
show all

Surveying & Built Environment Vol. 22 Issue 1 (December 2012)

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?