Devils Peak is a small hill of 222 metres that overlooks Junk Bay and the Lei Yue Mun sea passage. It is immediately adjacent to Yau Tong which is now a mixed residential and industrial location.
The British acquired Hong Kong in three distinct phases, and it was only in the latter phase that Devil’s Peak came under their control. The New Territories, including Devils’ Peak came under British control on the 16th April 1898 as a result of Second Convention of Peking.
Over the next decade the Devil’s Peak area became a major component in the defence of Lei Yue Mun Sea Passage and the Eastern Anchor of the Kowloon Defence Line. This defence line, with stops and start was to develop into the Gin Drinkers Line which ran over to Shing Mun Redoubt by 1939. The earlier version included up to thirty blockhouses of the Rice Pattern, as used in South Africa during the Second Boar War.
The main military features on Devil’s Peak were:
- Gough Battery
- Pottinger Battery
- Devil’s Peak Redoubt
- Devil’s Peak Position Finding Cell
- Defence Electric Lights