Former Site of the Hankou Branch of Asiatic Petroleum Company

In the summer of 1925, a British architect and his Chinese contractors completed the five‑storey headquarters at the corner of Tianjin Road for the Asiatic Petroleum Company, built to handle the booming kerosene trade along the Yangtze. This reinforced concrete structure, with its neoclassical pilasters and granite‑like stucco, became the firm’s regional nerve centre, its brass nameplate gleaming above the entrance.

When the Pacific War engulfed Hankou in 1941, Japanese troops seized the building and turned its offices into a prisoner‑of‑war camp, where iron bars replaced the ornate railings. After the war, the municipal government took it over and renamed it the Linjiang Hotel, hosting officials and foreign delegates for decades. The building survived both wartime bombardment and later urban redevelopment, retaining its original steel‑framed windows and terrazzo flooring.

Its facade blends Western Renaissance symmetry with Chinese decorative brackets beneath the cornice — a quiet reflection of the colonial era’s cultural entanglement. Inside, the former banking hall became a banquet room, while the vault was repurposed as a wine cellar. Today, designated a provincial heritage site, the Former Site of the Hankou Branch of Asiatic Petroleum Company stands quietly on the riverfront, its weathered stones still echoing the layered histories of commerce, conflict, and political change.