Signal Hill Garden

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？Blackhead x Tai Pau Mai (A bag of rice)？

Signal Hill (also known as the Blackhead Point and Tai Pau Mai) was a cape located at Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Between 1907 to 1933, Royal Observatory Hong Kong had used Signal Hill as a container of the time ball for the ships travelling along the Victoria Harbour. It is now well-known as the Signal Hill Garden and open to the public. The Signal Tower is remained.

A Pivotal Role
In 1907, Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) built a Signal Tower at the Blackhead Point to replace the nearby Marine Police Headquarters Compound. Signal Hill is named due to this purpose. Upon completion of the building construction, HKO moved the time ball from the Marine Police Headquarters Compound to the Signal Tower in the Blackhead Point. It is responsible for reporting time for the ships traffic in the Victoria harbour onwards.

With the widespread use of wireless telegraphy, using a time ball to report time has become an untimely choice. As time goes by, the operation of the time ball becomes short-staffed and inadequately maintained. The government decided to remove the time ball from the signal tower on June 30, 1933 and was abandoned since then.

Out with the Old, In with the New

In 1980, the Urban Council carried out the refurbishment project for the Signal Tower at the Signal Hill. It was later developed as the Signal Hill Garden in 1981 and a park maintained by the Leisure and Cultural Service. The signal tower is open to the public and the small building is transformed into a public toilet afterwards.

After years of reclamation, Signal Hill is no longer close to the coast. Currently, Signal Hill is located at the junction of Salisbury Road and Chatham Road South, while the sea side is blocked by Victoria Dockside. It is therefore difficult to view the Signal Hill from the Victoria Harbour now.