Victoria Garden and Gate Lodge

The garden was laid out on the former lawns of the governor's summer residence. On the upper terrace, people once played tennis and held family picnics. By the pavilion, granite foundations and stone steps mark the site of the vanished large house. The garden's name came from Victoria Peak, named after the British queen.

The small house by Mount Austin Road is called Gate Lodge—the gatekeeper's house. The gatekeeper of the governor's summer residence lived there. He was allotted about nine square meters: a bed, a work area, and an entrance that had to be guarded. From here, a long path began toward Mountain Lodge—the governor's country house on the highest part of the island. There was no road beyond this point: for the last part of the journey, the governor was carried in a sedan chair.

The residence was built at the insistence of Henry Blake, a governor who needed to replace the former house, which had been eaten away by termites. In nineteen oh two, Blake received a two-story building with seven bedrooms, towers, verandas, a billiard room, and a room for the children's lessons. Summers on Victoria Peak were cooler, so the governor could move his family and official household here from the lower city.

Just a few years later, the point of such a move began to disappear. In nineteen oh eight, forty-two electric fans were installed in the main governor's residence. When Reginald Stubbs became governor in the early twenties, Mountain Lodge was assigned to him as an official summer residence. But for the coolness that the fans already provided, he would have had to make the journey to this little house every time, transfer to a sedan chair, and continue along the footpath. Stubbs decided the trouble was not worth it and almost stopped living here.

Termites attacked the vacant large house again. Under Stubbs, several floors had to be replaced, and under the next governor, Cecil Clementi, the wooden parts were treated every year. The less often the residence was used, the more money was needed to keep it fit for the governor.

In nineteen thirty-two, Governor William Peel, who was seeking a more convenient country house, proposed giving up Mountain Lodge. Two years later, a new residence was built in Fanling, which could be reached by road. The house on Victoria Peak was abandoned for good. During the war years, without maintenance, it deteriorated so badly that Mark Young, who had returned to the post of governor, accepted the advice of the Public Works Department and ordered it demolished. In nineteen forty-six, both the mansion and the servants' quarters were dismantled. The gatekeeper's house was left standing.

Later, city officials turned the former governor's lawns into a public park. The garden's name is inherited from Victoria Peak, named after the British Queen Victoria. On the upper lawn, where the governor's family and its guests played tennis and held picnics, visitors now relax; beside the pavilion, granite foundations and steps of the vanished residence remain.

In nineteen ninety-five, Gate Lodge was declared a monument. There has long been no gatekeeper behind its door, nor the house he guarded beyond the gate. His cramped workroom remains, and the former private path leads from it into a public garden.