The Plant Memorial at Big Temple Hill, beside the River Yangtze
Collection
Identifier
CP-s003
Notes
University of Bristol - Historical Photographs of China reference number: CP-s003. John Langford Smith, Yichang’s British Consul, proposed the creation of a Plant Monument Fund to build a monument to honour Cornell Plant’s contributions to Upper Yangtze trade and to be seen by all those who pass up and down the Yangtze Gorges. On 4 October 1923, the Plant Memorial, designed by Lawrence Tweedie-Stodart, was erected in Xintan (Hsintan) at the site of Captain Plant’s former bungalow, above the Xintan (Hsintan) Rapid. The 50-foot granite obelisk was inscribed in English and in Chinese. In the 1950s or '60s, the Plant Memorial was vandalised and the inscriptions chiseled away. The monument was located at Big Temple Hill in Xintan (now called Qu-Yuan Township). However, because it was located within a flooding area related to the Three Gorges Dam Project and considered an important historical landmark, the monument was moved to higher ground and restored in 2002-2003 (source: Wikipedia). This photograph was reproduced as the frontispiece to the 1932 edition of the 'Handbook for the Guidance of Shipmasters on the Ichang-Chungking Section of the Yangtze River' by S.C. Plant. See CP-s004.
Related Photographs
Location
Estimated Date
1930
Material
Paper
Media
Black and white photograph
