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A Death in Peking: Who Really Killed Pamela Werner

Pamela's hutong home

8/24/2018

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Picture
A hutong entrance (not the Werner home)
Pamela Werner's body was found a only few hundred yards from the home she shared with her father at number 1 Kuei-chia-chang, a courtyard dwelling in a Peking hutong. 

Hutongs are walled lanes, dotted with entrance gates that hide a private home within.

The above is a rather grand example, in a typical run-down state of repair.



Picture
Pamela Werner
Picture
Inside, the courtyard was often graced with a small garden, with single-storey dwellings around.  Left, another fine example.
Despite the construction of new rail station, parts of Kue-chia-chang still exists today, but, owing to house number changes over the years, it's not proved possible to identify which, if any, of the existing relate to the Werner home of 1937. 

​Right. The larger and superior accommodation would be the preserve of the master of the house, while the smaller buildings were for servants.

The Werners had several domestic servants, including a cook and a gatekeeper. 
 
Picture
Picture
Kuei-chia-chang in 2018
​Left. Kuei-chia-chang in 2018. The hutong as scruffy now as it may have been in 1937.

The Werners had only recently moved to the hutong; Pamela's father was planning a permanent return to the UK, and it may have been considered a temporary measure only.

​Returning from school in Tientsin, Pamela was probably unfamiliar with the streets around.


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    Graeme Sheppard

    Author of the new book, A Death in Peking, published by Earnshaw Books.

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