Hong Kong Travel: Under the fort
Blog: asian ramblings - 8 July 2009
By: Stevo
On the many corridors under the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defense, formerly the Lei Yue Fort. The British built the fort in the late 19th century to protect the eastern approach, the Lei Yue Mun Pass to Victoria Harbour, from the French and Russian navies. (Ironically, the fortification look incredibly similar the Chinese Shajiao Fort in Humen China – that the British stormed during the first Opium War.)
The centerpiece of the fort is the redoubt that was dug deep into a hillside. The corridors and storerooms, containing ammunition and gunpowder, were covered with earth, making the fort hard to spot. A trench around the area, with stone caponiers, protected the fort if invaders found their way to land.
The fort was never used in the way it was intended. A shot was never fired at Russian or French ships. During the Battle of Hong Kong, Lei Yue Fort was used by British forces in an attempt to unsuccessfully repel the Japanese assault of Hong Kong Island. Evidence of the fighting is still visible.
After the Battle of Hong Kong and the Second World War the British used the fort as a training ground until it was vacated in 1987. Hong Kong government agencies decided to give Lei Yue Fort a second lease on life and created the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence in 1993.
A permanent exhibit covering 600 years of military defence in the Pearl River Delta is on display in the underground rooms that once held thousand of artillery shells and tonnes of gunpowder. A historic trail leads visitors through the batteries, a ruined settlement (destroyed during the Battle of Hong Kong), and the Brennan Torpedo station carved into the rock at the base of the fort.
The Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defense is a short walk from the Island Line’s Shau Kei Wan MTR station.
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