SW View over Happy Valley: Past and Present

Thomson was positioned to the northeast of ‘Leighton’s Hill’, almost certainly standing on the nearby high point – East Point Hill, close to today’s Jardine’s Bazaar. Looking south-southwest, he captured the ‘formal gardens’ marked on an 1888 map, the quarried off end of today’s Leighton Hill, Happy Valley, and the summits of Hong Kong Island. Today The Leighton Hill, a monolithic tower block vastly out of proportion to its surroundings, now completely obscures this view. So the 2015 photo had to be taken from further to the west. It was shot from the roof of a building facing the Craigengower Cricket Club. The distant summits appear to be the same, but this is a directional illusion. The whale-backed summit seen in Thomson’s view is Mount Nicholson. Looking further to the west (or right), that rising in today’s image is Mount Cameron.