Tsang Tai Uk: A Sha Tin Walled Village Built in Stone

Tsang Tai Uk is also known as Shan Ha Wai, or Walled Village at the Foothill. Its construction began in 1847 and was completed in 1867. The Antiquities Advisory Board’s appraisal traces the project to Tsang Koon-man, a Hakka man from Wuhua in Guangdong who came to Hong Kong as a teenager and worked as a quarryman in Cha Kwo Ling and Shau Kei Wan. He later established a quarry business in Shau Kei Wan, where demand for building stone rose as Hong Kong developed as a city. With the profit, he bought land in Sha Tin from the Tsang clan and built the village. The account links the founder’s work directly to the material form of the settlement: a quarryman who dealt in stone created a walled complex with substantial masonry. The village was built for his family and descendants, and its scale reflected the prosperity he had achieved.

The appraisal describes Tsang Tai Uk as a Hakka three-hall, four-row walled village. Its main entrance, entrance hall, middle hall and main hall sit on a central axis. Four three-storey corner towers rise at the corners, while residential units line the outer walls and fill rows in the middle. Green bricks and granite dressing form the walls; timber rafters and ceramic tiles support the pitched roofs. Gun holes were provided in the walls and towers, which the appraisal connects to the presence of pirates and bandits at the time. These features make the village’s defensive character visible in its plan and fabric. It is not only a group of houses surrounded by a wall: the entrances, halls, towers and residential rows form a coordinated enclosure. The appraisal notes that added units and cemented sections have altered parts of the complex, while its main form remains retained.

The village took twenty years to complete. The ancestral hall stood on the central axis, with the founder’s two rooms beside it; other houses and courtyards were added during construction. During the Second World War, it sheltered about 500 refugees. The name Tsang Tai Uk was adopted after that period. Built for one family, the fortified village later served as a refuge for many.