Wan Chai Heritage Trail, Heritage trail in Wan Chai, Hong Kong.
The Wan Chai Heritage Trail is a two-hour walking route in Wan Chai District, launched on 27 September 2009 by the Old Wan Chai Revitalisation Initiatives Special Committee. It is split into two themed parts: an Architectural Heritage Trail of ten sites running from the Green House on Mallory Street to the Starstreet Precinct, and a Cultural Heritage Trail of five sites from Pak Tai Temple to the Gresson Street open market. Plaques at the sites explain their history and architecture.
The trail opened on 27 September 2009, after the Development Bureau's Old Wan Chai Revitalisation Initiatives Special Committee commissioned a consultant in 2008 to link historic sites. It was first proposed with 24 sites and two themes, religious and architectural, before being split into an Architectural Heritage Trail and a Cultural Heritage Trail. At launch, nine of its properties were under restoration by the Urban Renewal Authority and the Development Bureau.
The trail's name is written on plaques set up at each stop from October 2008, before the official opening. The route links the Blue House, the Pak Tai Temple with its 1604 bronze statue, and the Hung Shing Temple, built before 1847 and rebuilt in 1860. The open-air markets on Tai Yuen, Cross and Gresson streets, with over 150 stalls, are the trail's living stops.
The trail is divided into two themed routes: the Architectural Heritage Trail runs from the Green House on Mallory Street to the Starstreet Precinct, while the Cultural Heritage Trail runs from Pak Tai Temple to the Gresson Street open market. Free trail maps are distributed at the Heritage Discovery Centre, the Hong Kong Tourism Board and nearby bookshops and hotels.
The Green House is a row of ten tong-lau at 1–11 Mallory Street and 4–12 Burrows Street, built in the 1920s with wooden floors and cast-iron balcony columns in a Western style. It once housed a shelter for the homeless, and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta rented space there. It is graded a Grade II historic building.
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