Tai Kwun
Colonial prison, courthouse, and police compound turned UNESCO-awarded heritage arts centre.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Tai Kwun in Hong Kong opens in June 1931, when a man travelling under a false name was arrested on the street and marched into Victoria Gaol, the prison whose walls still stand here. His real name was Nguyen Ai Quoc, the future Ho Chi Minh, and the French colonial authorities wanted him extradited from Hong Kong. The guide follows the legal fight that followed, argued by a British solicitor and carried all the way to the Privy Council in London. It also traces the compound's own history, from its construction in 1841 as the colony's first prison, courthouse and police headquarters to its reopening after restoration in 2018.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
PMQ
Former police married quarters turned creative hub, housing over a hundred design studios and galleries.
1881 Heritage
Preserved Victorian-era Marine Police compound turned luxury retail and heritage hotel complex.
Stanley Murray House
Neoclassical granite colonnade relocated stone by stone from Central, now overlooking Stanley Bay.
Hong Kong Park
Former British military barracks turned lush urban park, with a colonial mansion now housing a teaware museum.
The Mills
Revitalised nineteen-fifties cotton-spinning mills turned creative hub, housing arts spaces and a textile heritage centre.
Hollywood Road
Antique-shop street climbing past art galleries and a temple that once doubled as a courthouse.