Projects

St Stephen's College Heritage Gallery - Exhibition and Heritage Conservation

Year of Approval

2009-2010

Grantee

St Stephen’s College

Project Status

Completed in March 2017

Brief Description of the Project

St. Stephen’s College is steeped in history. During the Japanese Occupation, the College was an internment camp where the St Stephen’s College Massacre took place. Its campus is an important historic site that bears witness to the history of Japanese Occupation.

Some campus buildings, such as the School House, have been listed as declared monument or grade 2-3 historic buildings. Few local schools have as many historic buildings as the College does. In 2008, the College established a heritage trail by linking all of its historic buildings, making it the only secondary school in Hong Kong that has a heritage trail within the campus.

Bungalows 3 and 4 are typical colonial period single storey houses build around the time when the College was founded in Stanley. These bungalows were originally used as senior staff quarters. Each bungalow has a gross floor area of about 2,200 square feet, and is divided into two large sitting halls and four bedrooms. There are also a storage room, a kitchen and a bathroom.

With the funding support of the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust, the College implemented the “St. Stephen’s College Heritage Gallery - Exhibition and Heritage Conservation” project to revitalise its historic buildings and showcase over a hundred historical artefacts that require professional storage and maintenance. These artefacts are vital to our understanding of the history of Hong Kong’s development over the last century. The College converted the two bungalows into a Heritage Gallery and a Heritage Learning Annex without making any structural alteration to the original building. The Heritage Gallery opens to the public on a regular basis every month with guided tours provided by trained student docents of the College.