SE View over Happy Valley: Past and Present

This John Thomson panorama, over the Happy Valley racecourse and looking east-southeast to Jardine’s Lookout, was easily located generally. Yet even using approximate bearings from Jardine’s Lookout and the southern end of Leighton Hill, seen to the left, Thomson’s precise vantage point was much harder to define. Initially, we thought that the gully was today’s extension of Queen’s Road East, where it meets the expanse of Happy Valley. More reconnaissance showed that the location of Thomson’s vantage point in fact is a little above the lower part of Stubbs Road, overlooking Saint Michael’s Catholic Cemetery. The Chinese Pines framing both photos are intriguing; but given the ravages of tree-cutting, typhoons and tree aging they must be different specimens.