Signal Tower
- Feb 19
- 7 min read
Introduction
Hidden behind the modern skyscrapers of Tsim Sha Tsui, a silent witness to Hong Kong’s long-gone past still stands as tall as its ancient bricks and stones allow. Snugly fit between the Mariner’s Club, Salisbury Road, and Chatham Road South, it still guards a small park, whose sole innocuous entrance on a dead-end street is all too easily overlooked.
Once an important and striking landmark on the southeastern edge of the Kowloon Peninsula, it housed a time-ball apparatus designed to signal time to mariners. That was before land reclamation pushed the shoreline of Tsim Sha Tsui further south and relegated Signal Tower to a relic of the past, far behind modern K11 Musea and Victoria Dockside.
Today, located 200 meters (650 feet) from the shores of Tsim Sha Tsui, Signal Tower is nearly invisible from Victoria Harbour; and one wouldn’t suspect its existence if one wasn’t aware of this once cornerstone of maritime navigation in Hong Kong.
History
The story of Signal Tower takes us back to a time when Tsim Sha Tsui wasn’t yet the bustling urban center it is today; a time well before Tsim Sha Tsui’s iconic hotel, The Peninsula, was built.
In 1907, the Hong Kong Observatory had Signal Tower built on top of the hill known as Blackhead Point, on the then-southeasternmost edge of the Kowloon Peninsula, to house the time-ball apparatus which had, until then, been located in the Round House of the former Marine Police Headquarters, better known today as 1881 Heritage.
Looking at a modern map of Hong Kong, it may be hard to imagine, but before any land reclamation had taken place in Kowloon, Blackhead Point was a cape extending into Victoria Harbour. In fact, reclamation in Kowloon has been so extensive—particularly in the second half of the twentieth century—that Hung Hom Bay has literally vanished under concrete.
Blackhead Point was named after Friedrich Johan Berthold Schwarzkopf, a late nineteenth-century German businessman and founder of a soap and soda factory in Shau Kei Wan, who anglicized his name to Blackhead after becoming a British citizen. Local residents, however, referred to the hill as Tai Pau Mai (大包米), which means “large bag of rice,” due to the hill’s resemblance to a bag of rice.
Initially, Signal Tower was a 42-foot (12.8-meter) high, three-storey tower. In 1927, however, a fourth storey of about 20 feet (6 meters) was added to enhance the tower's visibility from Victoria Harbour, which had been affected by the development of surrounding buildings.
Service at Signal Tower started on 8 January 1908. Between its inauguration and 1920, time was accurately signaled to mariners once per day, at 1 p.m. From 1920 to 1933, time was signaled twice per day: once at 10 a.m. and again at 4 p.m.
Until the 1990s, Blackhead Point and Signal Tower remained prominent landmarks in Tsim Sha Tsui. However, in 2004, the East Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station was inaugurated as an extension of the KCRC East Rail Line between Hung Hom and Tsim Sha Tsui. As part of the construction, a 9-meter-high above-ground structure had to be built where the Middle Road Children’s Playground stood. As a result, the new elevated Middle Road Children’s Playground now obstructs the view of Signal Tower from ground level.
Signal Tower was rated a Grade II historic building in 1981, before being upgraded to Grade I status in 2009. Eventually, on 23 October 2015, Signal Tower was declared a monument by the Antiquities Authority.
Time-Ball Apparatus
The initial purpose of Signal Tower was to house a time-ball apparatus. However, as methods used to accurately keep track of time aboard ships evolved, this simple mechanism, along with the building that housed it, became obsolete. Today, a description of how the time-ball worked can still be found in the Round House of the former Marine Police Headquarters, better known today as 1881 Heritage.
Accurate time measurement is, to this day, essential for determining one's precise position on the globe. Before the invention of modern means of communication, marine chronometers—developed by John Harrison in 1761—enabled mariners to calculate their longitude based on their local time relative to a known point of reference.
In simple terms, mariners set their chronometers to the local time of a known reference point. Once at sea, they determine the local time of their new position based on the sun's position in the sky and compare it with the time at their starting point. Since the sun moves across the sky at a rate of 15 degrees per hour, the difference in recorded time indicates the difference in longitude relative to their original position.
The time-ball apparatus on top of Signal Tower served no other purpose. Shortly before 1 p.m., a hollow copper ball, 6 feet (1.8 meters) in diameter, was hoisted to the top of an 18-foot (5½ meters) mast, visible to all ships in Victoria Harbour. At exactly 1 p.m., the ball was dropped, allowing mariners in Victoria Harbour to accurately set their marine chronometers to Hong Kong's time. Once at sea, mariners could compare their local time to Hong Kong’s and determine their longitude.
Between 1920 and 1933, however, time at Signal Tower was signaled at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. However, as the use of radio time signals spread across the British Empire starting in 1924, the time-ball apparatus became obsolete. Eventually, on 30 June 1933, service at Signal Tower ceased.
Architecture
Signal Tower was built in 1907 in a distinctly Edwardian style, as was common in colonial Hong Kong in the early twentieth century. Other notable buildings constructed in the Edwardian style, which still stand to this day, include the Old Pathological Institute (built in 1906), Kom Tong Hall (built in 1914), and Tsim Sha Tsui’s Clock Tower, the only remaining part of the KCR railway station, built in 1916 and demolished in 1978.
Signal Tower was built following a heavy Classical Baroque design and incorporates popular Edwardian features. The most prominent feature of Signal Tower is its red brickwork, which contrasts with lighter-colored stones—a common characteristic of most Edwardian buildings of the period.
Signal Tower is, further, a square-shaped building featuring chamfered corners. The red bricks were specially made in “English Bond,” while the stonework is crafted from local granite. Other striking architectural features include granite plinths, molded cornices, and windows with so-called Gibbs surrounds.
Prior to the addition of a fourth floor, Signal Tower’s roof was flat. When the fourth floor was added in 1928, a concrete dome-shaped roof replaced the original flat roof.
Signal Hill Battery
Nowadays, remains of a battery containing four concrete gun emplacements can still be seen at Signal Hill Garden, only 160 feet (50 meters) from Signal Tower. Blackhead’s Hill, as it was called in the early twentieth century, was a strategic high point owned by the British military, as evidenced by two stone cubes bearing the inscription W.D.L. 64, which is short for “War Department Land.”
It was the site of Kowloon East Battery, which complemented Kowloon West Battery near the former Marine Police Headquarters, serving as a harbor defense until 1958, when the British military handed over Blackhead Point to the colonial government of Hong Kong.
Evidence indicates that, other than for military purposes, the guns on Signal Hill Battery have been fired for ceremonial reasons. For example, on 22 January 1936, a royal salute of 21 guns was fired from Blackhead Fort, among other locations, following the proclamation of King Edward VIII.
Today
Signal Hill Garden was opened to the public in 1974, after the Urban Council was given control over Blackhead Point a year prior and had it restored. Since then, it has become a quiet and inconspicuous park that very few people would stumble upon by chance. Unlike most parks in Hong Kong, a single narrow entrance leads to the park, located at Minden Row, a small dead-end street that few visitors venture into except with the specific purpose of visiting Signal Hill Garden.
Although Blackhead Point was once a prominent feature overlooking the peninsula of Kowloon and Victoria Harbour, today Signal Hill Garden is dwarfed by the tall skyscrapers surrounding it. This sorry state of affairs has only worsened with the construction of the 931.8-foot (284-meter) Victoria Dockside and adjacent K11 Musea, as well as the redevelopment of the neighboring Mariner’s Club into a 42-storey building.
Consequently, Signal Tower has become nearly invisible from ground level. In fact, the fate of Signal Hill Garden was sealed in 2004 when Middle Road Children’s Playground was elevated to make way for the structure of East Tsim Sha Tsui’s MTR station.
Signal Tower itself, however, can still be visited free of charge between 9 and 11 o’clock in the morning and between 4 and 6 o’clock in the afternoon. Signal Hill Garden, on the other hand, is open to the public from 7 am to 11 p.m.
Conclusion
Originally designed to house a time-keeping device, Signal Tower served its purpose for barely twenty-five years before modern technology rendered it obsolete. Yet, paradoxically, although it no longer keeps track of time, it still reminds visitors of the passage of time.
A prime example of Edwardian architecture, it has become a witness to the relentless evolution of Hong Kong; a silent remnant of a long bygone era when Blackhead Point jutted deep into Victoria Harbour, gutted of its original purpose and now dwarfed by modern skyscrapers towering high above its concrete dome.
If anything, Signal Tower reminds us of what Hong Kong used to be in a not-so-distant past. Once the tallest building in Tsim Sha Tsui and the southernmost building in all of Kowloon, it now serves as a stark reminder of how far Hong Kong—and time-keeping technology—has come in just over a century.
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