Audio guide introduction: 1 minute 20 seconds
The Bethany Abbey, built in the neo-Goetheian style, was built in 1875 by the French Missionary Society in Paris. Bethany, which was a sanatorium at the time, mainly served tired and sick missionaries. It was the mission's first sanatorium in East Asia. It has received a total of about 101 missionaries, XNUMX of whom died here.
Many Hong Kong people don’t know that the city flower of Hong Kong, Bauhinia bauhinia, was first discovered by a priest from Bethany Monastery in Steel Wire Bay, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong Island around 1880. He transplanted it to the Pok Fu Lam Road area by transplantation. Bethany Abbey. Since Bauhinia is a hybrid plant and cannot reproduce on its own, all Bauhinia trees in Hong Kong and even around the world are replicas of the Bauhinia tree that was first (and only) discovered in the wild in 1880.
After its restoration in 2008, Bethany won the Honorable Mention at the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage and Monument Conservation Awards. The Bethany Campus of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts is now a declared monument in Hong Kong.
