1881 Heritage

Be sure to visit 1881 every now and then especially during festive days, you are guaranteed to capture beautiful pictures with your loved ones with the beautiful centre piece and backdrop that change regularly according to the festivity!
I walked past 1881 just yesterday (Jan 27) and the valentines day decoration is just beaaaautiful! Go early to avoid the crowd that will start flooding in towards the big day!
Lucky enough I have been there twice for friends’ wedding photo shooting after lunch and before the banquet at night. This place is popular for graduation photo taking and wedding photo taking for obvious reasons!
A visit to 1881 Heritage will transport you to Victorian-​era Hong Kong. From the 1880s to 1996, this was the headquarters of the Hong Kong Marine Police. Several buildings and artefacts of historical interest have been preserved and restored, and the site now features a shopping mall, a heritage hotel, and an exhibition hall.

This is a great outdoor plaza that used to be an converted Marine Police HQ.
The theme of this place is TIME therefore all the stores are pretty much watch stores. For a watch aficionado like my DH, this is mecca for him.
Climb up to the top of the tower to visit the little tree garden and learn about the Typhoon system and the Time Ball Tower. Look down and see the map on the ground.
Love the look of the converted hotel with the beautiful shutters and verandahs.

I love visiting historical sites but this place is unfortunately overrun by luxury shopping brands. What makes the management team think that by visiting a site with so much historical significance would encourage me go shopping at Cartier or Tiffanys? Hong Kong has so many other luxury malls where you can do that. I wish they had more exhibits than stores showcasing the history of Hong Kong.

1881 Heritage, or Hullett House as I prefer to refer to it, is an amazing historical site, steeped in the history and grandeur of old Hong Kong. It has unfortunately in my opinion been completely ruined by the luxury shopping experience that has invaded the ground floor.
Stepping away from the Tiffany’s and the Puyi Optical, I find myself drawn to the main building, Hullett House, that used to be the former marine police HQ. And boy, if I knew the marine police HQ looked like that, I would have signed up! It is a magnificent building that commands the entire site with beauty and elegance that we so rarely see now in Hong Kong.
For me, this site is all about the history, and you can find out about all of this inside the Heritage Hall, which is underneath the main building. Also on the site is the Time Ball Tower, which is a giant ball that was dropped every day at 1pm, so that ships could reset their chronometers with accuracy, and the original typhoon signal mast, where they would manually hoist huge metal typhoon signals. The same symbols are used today, just on our iPhones, which are a bit easier to carry around.
Elsewhere on the sites are a number of cafes and restaurants, including all of the offerings inside the Hullett House Hotel. If the history is too much to take, you can rest your feet and have a nice G&T.
For visitors and locals alike, is it fantastic place to come to remember the good old days, and the great heritage of Hong Kong. If you are desperate for a shopping fix, you can always nip downstairs to Shanghai Tang.