1. The History
The former Maykong Godown silk factory is located at 364 Castle Peak Road in Tsuen Wan in the New Territories of Hong Kong. It consists of two buildings which were once part of Mayar Silk Mills (HK) Ltd. The foundations of the company can be traced back to the Shanghai-based silk manufacturer, Moh Shangqing, fondly referred to as “King of the Silk Industry. In 1917, Moh looked to co-found Mayar Silks Mills with American businessman Rober Lang and Chinese businessman Wang Fuqing. When Lang failed to deliver on the introduction of modern US technological expertise, the company was closed down. However, in May 1920, Moh remerged and using his own capital, established a company of the same name. A year later, in 1921, he appointed Tsai Shengbai as his General Manager in Shanghai. Born in 1894 in Zhejiang, the US-educated Tsai had just graduated from Lehigh University with a degree in mining and mechanical engineering in 1919. Moh considered him to be the right fit for the job due to the combination of his engineering background and knowledge of capitalist economics. Tsai had come onto Moh’s radar as he had earlier married his daughter Moh Pearl Huaizhu.
Moh’s appointment of his son-in-law proved to be a shrewd move. Tsai played a key role in introducing modern technology into the silk-making process and within ten years, the company had established itself as one of Shanghai’s biggest silk manufacturers, with ten factories and over a thousand machines. However, in 1937, the Sino-Japanese war led to over half of the company’s factories being destroyed. Tsai immediately set about by relocating the company’s machinery and equipment, setting up four new factories in Guangzhou, Hankou, Chongqing and Hong Kong. The HK branch of Mayar was thus established in the late 1930s in an old canning factory in Tsuen Wan. However, the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in December 1941 led to the factory initially shutting, although operations were permitted to resume, albeit at a much lower level of output. Post-World War Two, production resumed at full tilt. The Hong Kong factory then assumed an elevated role in the company with the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War as production was moved to Hong Kong and the company formally registered in 1948 and incorporated as Mayar Silk Mills (Hong Kong) Limited.
Subsequently, in the early 1950s, a number of Shanghai industrialists relocated to HK. Instead of choosing the already crowded Hong Kong island, like Mayar Silk Mills, they chose to locate in Tsuen Wan. A plentiful supply of water critical for the dying and bleaching process and the close proximity to the Rambler’s channel in Victoria Harbour played a key part in this decision. As a result, the government started to develop Tsuen Wan New Town in 1963. This resulted in the land on which the old mill occupied being purchased by the government. The company then used the resulting compensation to relocate to the current site in Tsuen Wan New Town and commence the construction of two new buildings in 1964 and 1966.
Business flyer for the mill:
Picture of the front elevation of the mill:
© and Photographer: unknown
During the late 60s and early 70s, silk production in Tsuen Wan boomed and the New Town became a hub for the textiles industry, leading it to being referred to as “Little Manchester of the East”. However, this golden period soon passed and the silk trade peaked and then went into decline. By 1967, only one floor of Factory No.2 was being used for silk production, with the other three floors being rented out for storage. In 1974, the company sold its machinery and equipment, bringing to an end to its silk-weaving business. In 1975 the whole factory was being rented out, barely a decade on from its initial construction. In the years following the industries demise, many of the other factories involved in the textile industry were demolished and redeveloped into tower-blocks and shopping centres. Go Down’s repurposing as a storage facility saved it from a similar fate, and survives today, along with the former Nang Fung factory, now redeveloped as “The Mills”. By 2002, the income rentals had dwindled where they were too little to make the building viable, so it shut its gates and entered its current phase of abandonment.
General vista of the mill’s environs circa 1980:
© and Photographer: unknown
Since abandonment, the Antiquities Office have failed to assign any preservation orders on the factory, stated that it lacked any distinctive architectural features and was only involved in silk production for a short period of time. The conversion of the factory saw the installation of gates and fire doors which further reduced the factory’s architectural merits. In 2024, Mayar Silk Mills Ltd (2024), who remained owners of the site over the years, got together and finally put the company into liquidation. The factory plot was placed on the market at an indicative price of HK$500m (equivalent to £50m) by Savills in May 2025. It sold in September 2025 to prominent local developer, Billion Development, just below the asking price at HK$476m. In a recent development in May 2026, the Antiquities Advisory Board (AAB) invited public views on the proposed grading of the factories, via two separate listings. However, the Historic Building Appraisal documents don’t present a particularly strong case and it the most likely outcome appears to be the site with be cleared and redeveloped in the future.
In terms of the factories themselves, they were designed by I. J. Campbell of Hong Kong-based architects, Palmer and Turner, one of the oldest architects in the world, based in the HSBC building. As mentioned earlier, it was built in two phases. The rear four-storey building, for some reason referred to as Phase 2, was actually constructed first in 1964 for the production of silk and to house the machinery. Shortly after construction, it was used as a film location in 1965 for the film “Spring’s End. The flowers haven’t fallen yet” staring for the Patrick Tse Yin. Phase One, the red-brick three-storey warehouse that faces onto Castle Peak Road, was completed two years later in 1966 to provide storage facilities. Between the two buildings, they had a combined floor space of 180,000 ft2 and were both built using concrete with a single layer of red-bricks in certain parts of the building. The floors for textile warehouse (Phase One) had to be very strong and hence were constructed to bare a weight of 300lbs per square foot. The ceiling height varied between 4-5m so the textiles could be stacked to a decent height while still leaving room for ventilation. The pillars holding up the ceilings had oversized column caps so the columns beneath them could be slimmer, in order to maximise storage space. The building also had a concrete chute slanting down from the third floor to send textiles down the ground level.
2. The Explore
This place goes a long way back with me and I’ve a real soft spot for the site. I first photographed the factory frontage must have been as far back as August 1997. All this time little has changed, and it has been locked up and in a disused state, although there was hints that there was a live-in caretaker on-site. Hence all I’ve ever got is external pics. Back in 2019, however, myself and @drhowser managed to get in and explore the interior, and despite it being fairly sparse inside, it was still pretty photogenic. Fast-forward to this Summer and when I was passing, spotted a relatively easy way in so thought it would be rude not to have a bit a revisit. In truth, not too much has changed. There was no signs of the former caretaker and, perhaps linked to this, there was an increase in the amount of graffiti. It’s not clear how much longer this place will be around for so it was good to have another look at this former curio of the Tsuen Wan textile industry. Also, since my last report a large amount of info on the mill has become available, hence the previous section about the history of the mill is far more comprehensive.
3. The Pictures
Front elevation as it used to look like:
And now with the lettering and lamps removed:
From a distance:
Round the back and in:
Old sowing machine:
Lots of space:
And weighing machines:
Third weighing machine:
The all-important fire hose:
Plenty of stair-case action:
This door must be pretty old:
Good lift:
Vintage signage:
More wide open floor space:
Some cool signage:
Looking down:
Top of the shop:
Lift electrics:
Another weighing machine:
Quick look at the roof:
And across at the other building:
And down we go:
The former Maykong Godown silk factory is located at 364 Castle Peak Road in Tsuen Wan in the New Territories of Hong Kong. It consists of two buildings which were once part of Mayar Silk Mills (HK) Ltd. The foundations of the company can be traced back to the Shanghai-based silk manufacturer, Moh Shangqing, fondly referred to as “King of the Silk Industry. In 1917, Moh looked to co-found Mayar Silks Mills with American businessman Rober Lang and Chinese businessman Wang Fuqing. When Lang failed to deliver on the introduction of modern US technological expertise, the company was closed down. However, in May 1920, Moh remerged and using his own capital, established a company of the same name. A year later, in 1921, he appointed Tsai Shengbai as his General Manager in Shanghai. Born in 1894 in Zhejiang, the US-educated Tsai had just graduated from Lehigh University with a degree in mining and mechanical engineering in 1919. Moh considered him to be the right fit for the job due to the combination of his engineering background and knowledge of capitalist economics. Tsai had come onto Moh’s radar as he had earlier married his daughter Moh Pearl Huaizhu.
Moh’s appointment of his son-in-law proved to be a shrewd move. Tsai played a key role in introducing modern technology into the silk-making process and within ten years, the company had established itself as one of Shanghai’s biggest silk manufacturers, with ten factories and over a thousand machines. However, in 1937, the Sino-Japanese war led to over half of the company’s factories being destroyed. Tsai immediately set about by relocating the company’s machinery and equipment, setting up four new factories in Guangzhou, Hankou, Chongqing and Hong Kong. The HK branch of Mayar was thus established in the late 1930s in an old canning factory in Tsuen Wan. However, the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in December 1941 led to the factory initially shutting, although operations were permitted to resume, albeit at a much lower level of output. Post-World War Two, production resumed at full tilt. The Hong Kong factory then assumed an elevated role in the company with the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War as production was moved to Hong Kong and the company formally registered in 1948 and incorporated as Mayar Silk Mills (Hong Kong) Limited.
Subsequently, in the early 1950s, a number of Shanghai industrialists relocated to HK. Instead of choosing the already crowded Hong Kong island, like Mayar Silk Mills, they chose to locate in Tsuen Wan. A plentiful supply of water critical for the dying and bleaching process and the close proximity to the Rambler’s channel in Victoria Harbour played a key part in this decision. As a result, the government started to develop Tsuen Wan New Town in 1963. This resulted in the land on which the old mill occupied being purchased by the government. The company then used the resulting compensation to relocate to the current site in Tsuen Wan New Town and commence the construction of two new buildings in 1964 and 1966.
Business flyer for the mill:
Picture of the front elevation of the mill:
© and Photographer: unknown
During the late 60s and early 70s, silk production in Tsuen Wan boomed and the New Town became a hub for the textiles industry, leading it to being referred to as “Little Manchester of the East”. However, this golden period soon passed and the silk trade peaked and then went into decline. By 1967, only one floor of Factory No.2 was being used for silk production, with the other three floors being rented out for storage. In 1974, the company sold its machinery and equipment, bringing to an end to its silk-weaving business. In 1975 the whole factory was being rented out, barely a decade on from its initial construction. In the years following the industries demise, many of the other factories involved in the textile industry were demolished and redeveloped into tower-blocks and shopping centres. Go Down’s repurposing as a storage facility saved it from a similar fate, and survives today, along with the former Nang Fung factory, now redeveloped as “The Mills”. By 2002, the income rentals had dwindled where they were too little to make the building viable, so it shut its gates and entered its current phase of abandonment.
General vista of the mill’s environs circa 1980:
© and Photographer: unknown
Since abandonment, the Antiquities Office have failed to assign any preservation orders on the factory, stated that it lacked any distinctive architectural features and was only involved in silk production for a short period of time. The conversion of the factory saw the installation of gates and fire doors which further reduced the factory’s architectural merits. In 2024, Mayar Silk Mills Ltd (2024), who remained owners of the site over the years, got together and finally put the company into liquidation. The factory plot was placed on the market at an indicative price of HK$500m (equivalent to £50m) by Savills in May 2025. It sold in September 2025 to prominent local developer, Billion Development, just below the asking price at HK$476m. In a recent development in May 2026, the Antiquities Advisory Board (AAB) invited public views on the proposed grading of the factories, via two separate listings. However, the Historic Building Appraisal documents don’t present a particularly strong case and it the most likely outcome appears to be the site with be cleared and redeveloped in the future.
In terms of the factories themselves, they were designed by I. J. Campbell of Hong Kong-based architects, Palmer and Turner, one of the oldest architects in the world, based in the HSBC building. As mentioned earlier, it was built in two phases. The rear four-storey building, for some reason referred to as Phase 2, was actually constructed first in 1964 for the production of silk and to house the machinery. Shortly after construction, it was used as a film location in 1965 for the film “Spring’s End. The flowers haven’t fallen yet” staring for the Patrick Tse Yin. Phase One, the red-brick three-storey warehouse that faces onto Castle Peak Road, was completed two years later in 1966 to provide storage facilities. Between the two buildings, they had a combined floor space of 180,000 ft2 and were both built using concrete with a single layer of red-bricks in certain parts of the building. The floors for textile warehouse (Phase One) had to be very strong and hence were constructed to bare a weight of 300lbs per square foot. The ceiling height varied between 4-5m so the textiles could be stacked to a decent height while still leaving room for ventilation. The pillars holding up the ceilings had oversized column caps so the columns beneath them could be slimmer, in order to maximise storage space. The building also had a concrete chute slanting down from the third floor to send textiles down the ground level.
2. The Explore
This place goes a long way back with me and I’ve a real soft spot for the site. I first photographed the factory frontage must have been as far back as August 1997. All this time little has changed, and it has been locked up and in a disused state, although there was hints that there was a live-in caretaker on-site. Hence all I’ve ever got is external pics. Back in 2019, however, myself and @drhowser managed to get in and explore the interior, and despite it being fairly sparse inside, it was still pretty photogenic. Fast-forward to this Summer and when I was passing, spotted a relatively easy way in so thought it would be rude not to have a bit a revisit. In truth, not too much has changed. There was no signs of the former caretaker and, perhaps linked to this, there was an increase in the amount of graffiti. It’s not clear how much longer this place will be around for so it was good to have another look at this former curio of the Tsuen Wan textile industry. Also, since my last report a large amount of info on the mill has become available, hence the previous section about the history of the mill is far more comprehensive.
3. The Pictures
Front elevation as it used to look like:
And now with the lettering and lamps removed:
From a distance:
Round the back and in:
Old sowing machine:
Lots of space:
And weighing machines:
Third weighing machine:
The all-important fire hose:
Plenty of stair-case action:
This door must be pretty old:
Good lift:
Vintage signage:
More wide open floor space:
Some cool signage:
Looking down:
Top of the shop:
Lift electrics:
Another weighing machine:
Quick look at the roof:
And across at the other building:
And down we go:
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