St. John's Cathedral on Garden Street is one of only a handful of buildings recalling the 19th-century heyday of British rule.

Built in 1847 in Victorian-Gothic style, it is probably the Far East's oldest Anglican church, though it was badly damaged in World War II, when it served as an officers' club during the Japanese occupation. Many of the old memorial tablets and virtually all the stained-glass windows were lost. Now restored, the cathedral survives as a peaceful retreat from the capitalist frenzy of the surrounding streets.

Note the main doors, salvaged from the timbers of HMS Tamar, a British naval supply ship that arrived in Hong Kong in 1878 and remained in the harbour for over 50 years. It was scuttled in 1941 to prevent it from falling into Japanese hands, and for a time lent its name to part of the harbour. Between 1897 and 1993 this area was the British navy's Hong Kong headquarters: now only a 28-storey building and small harbour remain of a dockyard that once stretched to the Wan Chai waterfront to the east.

The Church has been renovated numerous times and this is now the main place of worship for Christians in Hong Kong and Macau.