Tai Kwun, the former Central Police Station

Locals always called it Tai Kwun, «the big station». In front of you is the façade of the old police headquarters, from 1919, and behind it stretches a walled compound with three monuments: the Central Police Station, the Central Magistracy and Victoria Prison.

1Law and order in the colony

Victoria Prison was Hong Kong's first jail: its origins go back to 1841, the very year the British arrived. The oldest surviving barrack block dates from 1864, and the present magistracy from 1914. Ordinary criminals, pirates and political prisoners all passed through these cells.

The most famous was a Vietnamese man arrested in 1931 under the name Nguyen Ai Quoc, the future Ho Chi Minh. His lawyer, Frank Loseby, fought the extradition to French Indochina all the way to the Privy Council in London, and in the end he was allowed to leave Hong Kong without being handed over to France.

On 15 December 1941, during the Battle of Hong Kong, Japanese bombs hit the headquarters. The prison closed in 2006, and the Jockey Club restored the compound with architects Herzog & de Meuron, who added two new buildings. It reopened in 2018.

The escalators overhead, opened in 1993, climb some 800 metres up to Mid-Levels.

2What to look for

• The headquarters façade, with columns and diamond-lattice windows.
• The parade ground, if you go in, surrounded by verandas.
• The escalator walkway, the locals' shortcut up the hillside.