漆咸道軍營
1975-1978
Open
Hold a few hundred refugees
The site of the Chatham Road camp was a land reclamation made in the 1910s for the Kowloon-Canton Railway. A camp for refugees from Shanghai
was built on the site in around 1948/49. In 1950, the site was given to the military.
The site was only occasionally used by the British army. Therefore, in 1961, when there was an outbreak of Cholera, the camp was used as a quarantine centre.It was also used as a shelter after the destruction brought by riots (1956) Typhoon
Wanda (1962).The camp was only used as a camp in the earliest years of the Vietnamese refugee crisis.
In 1981-83, half of the camp site was demolished and redeveloped as The Urban Council Centenary Garden and a few office buildings. The remaining part of the site was redeveloped a few years later to become the Hong Kong Museum of History and Hong Kong Science Museum.
*The Chatham Road Camp should not be mistaken with Chatham Road Centre/Compound, which was a detention facility across the street from the barracks. The Chatham Road Centre was demolished in 1973, before the arrival of the Vietnamese. That site has since been redeveloped as the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Chatham Road Camp
Aerial photo the Chatham Road camp from South Tsim Sha Tsui. One can see the reclamation for Hong Hum on the right. (Gwolo)
Aerial photo the Chatham Road camp in 1962, showing the camp structures and its ground. On the right of the photo is the Chatham Road Compound and the reclaimed land of Hong Hum being made at the time..
Plan of the Chatham Road camp overlay with current aerial photo. The part of the camp south of Granville Road (marked) was built in the 1970s to house the asylum seekers, and was first to be demolished to make way for Energy Plaza and Urban Council Centennial Park.