Table of Contents
11.2 Legislations
and Applicable Standards
11.4 History
of the Tsuen Wan Area
11.5 Potential Impacts Upon the Cultural Heritage along the
Alignment
List
of Figures
Figure 11-1 Maps Showing the Locations of Cultural
Heritage Study
11.1.1
This Chapter presents an evaluation of
the cultural heritage of the Study Area and assesses the potential impacts of
the widening works Project on those identified sites of cultural heritage
interest.
11.2.1
The EIA Ordinance stipulates that
consideration must be given to issues associated with cultural heritage and
archaeology as part of the EIA process.
Annexes 10 and 19 of the EIA TMEIAO-TM outline criteria
for evaluating the impacts on sites of cultural heritage and guidelines for
impact assessment, respectively. The EIAO-TM identifies a general presumption
in favour of the protection and conservation of all sites of cultural heritage
and requires impacts upon sites of cultural heritage to be ‘kept to a minimum’.
There is no quantitative standard for determining the relative importance of
sites of cultural heritage, but in general sites of unique, archaeological,
historical or architectural should be considered as highly significant.
11.2.2
The principal legislation relevant to
cultural heritage and archaeological issues is the Antiquities and Monuments
Ordinance (Cap 53). Human artifacts, relics and built structures may be
gazetted and protected as monuments under the Antiquities and Monuments
Ordinance (Cap 53). Under the Ordinance, the Antiquities Authority (Secretary
for Home Affairs) may, after consultation with the Antiquities Advisory Board
(AAB) and with Government approval, declare any place, building, site or
structure which the Antiquities Authority considers to be of public interest by
reason of its historical, archaeological or palaentological significance, to be
a monument, historical building, archaeological or palaentological site or
structure. Once declared to be a site of public interest, no person may
undertake acts which are prohibited under the Ordinance, such as to demolish or
carry out building or other works, unless a permit is obtained from the
Antiquities Authority.
11.2.3
The Antiquities and Monuments Office
(AMO) of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department is part of the Government
Secretariat and comprises the executive arm of the Antiquities Authority. The
AMO is the services arm of the AAB and is responsible for advising the
Government on sites which merit protection. The AMO has further responsibility
for the protection of buildings, items of historical interest and areas of
archaeological significance. The excavation and search for such relics requires
a license under the Ordinance.
11.2.4
For archaeological sites, all relics
dated prior to 1800AD belong to the Hong Kong Government under the Antiquities
and Monuments Ordinance. Once identified as having the potential for
conservation, archaeological sites are entered into the record. Archaeological
sites are administratively classified by AAB into three categories, as follows:
·
Designated - those that have been
declared as monuments and are to be protected and conserved at all costs;
·
Administrative Protection - those which
are considered to be of significant value but which are not declared as
monuments and should be either protected, or if found not possible to protect these
sites then salvaged; and
·
Monitored
- those which are of lesser significance or whose potential is not fully
assessed which should not be disturbed with the exception of minor works if
they are permitted and monitored by AMO.
11.2.5
In addition to the AMO, the Hong Kong
Archaeological Society (HKAS) is an independent organization with experts and
members of the public who have an interest in archaeological matters. The HKAS
organizes meetings, site visits and excavations of local sites and publishes
archaeological journals.
11.3.1
The investigation of the cultural
heritage of the area follows the approach identified in the EIA TMEIAO-TM and
the guidelines established by the AMO as set out in the EIA Study Brief. There
is relatively little published information on the cultural heritage of the
Study Area. Therefore, in addition to the desk top study, a field evaluation
was carried out along the alignment. This approach minimized the likelihood of
any features of cultural heritage interest being overlooked. This cultural
heritage investigation has been carried out with reference to the following:
·
Review of available documented
information;
·
Review of the current Outline Zoning
Plans, historical maps and aerial photographs; and
·
Site visits.
11.3.2
Besides,
according to the requirements stated in the EIA Study Brief, special attention
shall be paid to the following historical building and structures:
·
Chan
Ancestral Hall;
·
Old House
of Former Hoi Pa Village (Formerly Lot 956);
·
Old House
of Former Hoi Pa Village (Formerly Lot 917);
·
Grave of
Tang Yuk; and
·
Wang Fat
Ching She
11.4.1
Tsuen Wan is a generally hilly district.
To the north, the mountains rise up steeply to the Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong's
highest peak. From Tai Mo Shan two ridges run down to the coast: to the east,
the steep Golden Hill - Needle Hill Ridge (Smugglers' Ridge), and, to the west,
the Shek Lung Kong - Lin Fa Shan Ridge. The mountains thus surround the
district on all sides except the south-west, where the district opens out to
the sea. Before development sharply changed the topography of the area, the
sea-coast comprised two bays, Tsuen Wan Bay and Gindrinkers' Bay, separated by
a steep rocky headland. The district's arable land lay at the head of these two
bays. There was a little flat land close to the coast in both areas, although
most of the arable land lay on terraces climbing the lower parts of the
hillslopes. A number of streams ran down the sides of the mountains through
these arable areas to the sea. Much of Gindrinkers' Bay was tidal mudflats, and
this must once have been true of Tsuen Wan Bay, too, but at some date before
the mid-eighteenth century the eastern part of these mudflats was reclaimed by
the villagers to provide more arable land. The original sea-coast runs close to
today's Castle Peak Road in the Tsuen Wan Bay area: the sea-coast after the
eighteenth century villager reclamation lay close to Tak Wah Street. The
eastern coast of Tsuen Wan Bay lay close to today's Texaco Road (see Figure 10.1). The coasts of
Gindrinkers' Bay lay close to today's Kwai Chung Road to the east, and to Kwai
Fuk Road - Hing Fong Road to the west.
11.4.2
Tsuen Wan has been settled for a long time.
In the 10th Moon, 1277, the fugitive Sung Court stayed at Tsuen Wan (淺灣)
for a few weeks. It is, perhaps, unlikely that the Court would have chosen a
site which was then quite uninhabited, and it is thus probable that there was
at least some settlement here then. However, the Court did spend some time at
various places resident on their ships, and it remains possible that during the
stay at Tsuen Wan the Court remained on their ships, not on shore, in which
case the stay of the Court here would be compatible with the land being
uninhabited then. By the late Ming, however, there was certainly settlement
here. In the 1688 Hsin An County Gazetteer (新安縣志)
there is a list of the villages of the County, with a note stating that the
list was "taken from the old Gazetteer", i.e. the late Ming Gazetteer
(late sixteenth century). In this list both Tsuen Wan (淺灣村)
and Kwai Chung (葵涌村) appear. There must thus have been a
settlement at the head of both bays by the late Ming.
11.4.3
In 1662, however, the new Ching
Government drove all the inhabitants of the coastal areas inland, to deny any
assistance which they might have given to the Ming remnants under Koxinga on Taiwan.
The Tsuen Wan and Kwai Chung areas would certainly have been cleared in this
Coastal Evacuation. The Government made no provision for the sustenance of
those it ejected from their homes in this Evacuation. Huge numbers, deprived of
the fields which were their only means of subsistence, died of starvation
before the Coastal Evacuation Order was rescinded in 1668. In many places
no-one survived to return in 1668. This is the probable fate of the descendants
of the late Ming settlers in Tsuen Wan and Kwai Chung. None of the present-day
village clans of the area claim that their ancestors were settled there before
1662: they all claim to have settled there in the late seventeenth or
eighteenth century. Presumably, therefore, the earlier settlers failed to
survive the Evacuation. Archaeology has, to date, failed to provide any
evidence as to where the late Ming villages were, but it is quite likely that
the Tsuen Wan village of the late Ming was at Lo Wai (老圍,
"The Old Village"), and the late Ming Kwai Chung village at Sheung
Kwai Chung, which is where the first of the post-Evacuation villages were
established.
11.4.4
After 1668 the area was re-settled
entirely by Hakka clans. Tsuen Wan (with Sha Tau Kok) is one of the only two
districts in Hong Kong which are entirely Hakka. The first of the Hakka
settlers built their homes at Lo Wai and Sheung Kwai Chung, at the foot of the
mountains, as far back from the coast as possible (the sites of Lo Wai and
Sheung Kwai Chung are off Map 110
to the north). This is a common phenomenon in the broader New Territories area,
where the Ming and early Ching villages tend to be built well back from the
coast, to reduce the risk of attack by pirates (another good example is Tung
Chung, on Lantau, where the oldest village is Shek Mun Kap, sited as far back
from the sea-coast as possible). Lo Wai
was established in the late seventeenth century. It may, as noted above, have
been founded on the site of an older abandoned Ming village.
11.4.5
Most of the larger villages near the
coast in the Tsuen Wan area such as Sam Tung Uk, Muk Min Ha and Kwan Mun Hau 10seem mostly to have been established
in the early eighteenth century. The reclamation of the eastern mudflats was
probably undertaken in the middle eighteenth century. Two villages stand on
this reclamation - Hoi Pa and Yeung Uk (this latter village was also called Sha
Tsui) - and date from as soon as the reclamation was finished, i.e. the middle
eighteenth century. Shortly after the establishment of Hoi Pa (certainly before
the end of the eighteenth century), a market to serve the district was
established. It consisted of a row of shops built along the sea-wall. The top
of the sea-wall (which was an earthen bank) acted as a street, and the shops
stretched back from this footpath, supported on stilts. In front of the market
was a pier, which was the normal landing-place for the district.
11.4.6
In the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, a few small settlements were established in the more
marginal land at the edge of the district - Pak Tin Pai (also known as Pak Tin
Pa), Chai Wan Kok, and Yau Kam Tau are among these late-settled villages.
11.4.7
Most of the Kwai Chung villages stand at
the head of Gindrinkers' Bay, off the map at Figure 10.1. Only the site of Ha Kwai Chung (probably a
late-eighteenth century foundation) lies close to the line of the Tsuen Wan
Road.
11.4.8
As was the normal practice in the broader
New Territories area, the villagers of Tsuen Wan had an oath-sworn
inter-village mutual-defence pact linking them together so that the strength of
the villages could be combined if an attack by pirates or bandits made this
desirable. The Tsuen Wan oath-sworn district covered Tsuen Wan, Kwai Chung,
Tsing Yi, and as far to the west as Ma Wan (today's Tsuen Wan and Kwai Tsing
Districts approximate the area of the old inter-village alliance). The
inter-village alliance area, however, saw itself as forming four communities -
Tsuen Wan, Kwai Chung, Tsing Yi, and Ma Wan - each of which was, for most
matters, self-governing, although, when necessary, they would join together for
defence. Tsing Yi and Ma Wan were linked to Tsuen Wan by sampan ferries, which
landed at the market pier.
11.4.9
Each of these four village communities
had its own community temple. The Tsuen Wan temple was the Tin Hau Temple built
a little inland of Sam Tung Uk village, and the Kwai Chung temple was another
Tin Hau Temple, built on the sea-shore near Ha Kwai Chung village (the present temple
at Ha Kwai Chung is not the original, however, but a resited structure, dating
from the 1950s). The Tsuen Wan temple has in it a bell, which was cast "to
stand for ever before the altar of the Lady Tin Hau at Tsuen Wan (淺灣天后娘娘殿前永遠供奉)"
in 1743: this probably dates the final completion of the temple, although the
temple itself may be a few years older.
11.4.10 The
traditional economy of the area was rice subsistence farming. All the villages
were rice-farming settlements. In addition, most of the villages also owned one
or two fishing sampans, which fished in the inshore waters of the bays and
around the coasts of Tsing Yi. The fish caught were mostly eaten by the
villagers who used the sampans, but there was also a small community of Tanka
fishermen who caught fish for their livelihood and who used the Tsuen Wan Bay
as their home anchorage, and the Tsuen Wan Market as their base.
11.4.11 The
Tsuen Wan villagers, however, also exploited the wooded slopes of the Tai Mo
Shan, cutting bamboo and rattan, and making sieves and other implements with
what they cut, and also cutting wood for fuel. The larger villages in the area
also kept packs of hunting-dogs, which were used to hunt wild-boar on the
hills. The villagers also grew their own tea and gathered medicinal herbs on the
hillslopes, although they seem to have sold only a little of the tea they made,
keeping most of it for their own use. Before 1841, the "mountain
goods" produced by the villagers were probably mostly sold in Kowloon
City, but, after the foundation of the City, they were mostly carried to the
City for sale.
11.4.12 As
for many other communities along the New Territories coasts, the foundation of
the City of Hong Kong in 1841 brought considerable change to Tsuen Wan. The new
City had an insatiable need for fresh vegetables, fire-wood, fresh fish,
poultry, and meat animals. All the communities within easy reach of the City
began to set aside some of their arable land to providing for this new market.
Tsuen Wan was one of these. Within three or four years of the establishment of
the new City, sampan ferries were linking the City with Tsuen Wan, carrying
foodstuffs and fuel for sale in the City. By the early twentieth century, these
ferries were steam-ferries. Market-gardening brought a good deal of prosperity
to the district.
11.4.13 It
was by way of the ferries carrying the market-gardening produce between Tsuen
Wan and the City that the first missionaries reached Tsuen Wan from the City.
The first known were Catholic priests, who established a chapel here, near the
Market, as early as 1847.
11.4.14 During
the second half of the nineteenth century, the Tsuen Wan area became well-known
to the more adventurous Westerners living in the City. Men would come out to
Tsuen Wan by the sampan ferry, and hire bearers at the Market, and be carried
up the Tai Mo Shan to shoot pangolin or to hunt wild-boar there. There are a
number of accounts extant of such pleasure trips.
11.4.15 After
the opening of the Castle Peak Road between Shamshuipo and Tsuen Wan (1917),
the area became even more exposed to the influence of the City. Lorries and
buses began to run along the new road as soon as it was opened. This increased,
in particular, the opportunities and profits from market-gardening. Various
groups seeking sites near and accessible to the City, but not within the urban
area, also started to buy land and build in Tsuen Wan.
11.4.16 One
of these groups which settled in Tsuen Wan in some numbers were Buddhist and
other religious fleeing from the Kuomintang "Anti-Superstition
Campaign" in Canton (this peaked 1926-1927). Several groups of refugee
monks and nuns found Tsuen Wan a convenient place to re-establish themselves.
It is to this period, for instance, that the Chuk Lam Sim Yuen (竹林禪阮)
to the west of Lo Wai was established (completed 1931-1933), the Tung Po To Sim
Yuen at Lo Wai (東普陀禪阮, with a bell of 1919,
but essentially dating from 1933-1937), the Kin Yuen Tung (乾元洞,
1939), the Wang Fat Ching She at Chai Wan Kok (弘法精舍,
1939), and a number of other places. This establishment of Buddhist and other
religious houses in Tsuen Wan was part of a wider trend: other refugee monks
and nuns were establishing houses at exactly this same period in other suburban
areas, like Sha Tin and Tai Po, as well as on Lantau.
11.4.17 Other
groups looking for land here after the opening of the Castle Peak Road were
businessmen who needed remote but accessible sites. One such group were
lime-burners. Lime was an essential product for the building trade, but the burning
of lime was intensely polluting, and the Government forbade lime-burning within
the urban area in consequence. Lime-burners established themselves at a number
of suburban places (Sai Kung and Ping Chau, for instance), but many found Tsuen
Wan, and particularly Tsing Yi, a good site - the product was sent to the City
by the steam-ferries.
11.4.18 Another
early industrial newcomer was the Hume Pipe Works, which settled on the coast
between Chai Wan Kok and Yau Kam Tau in the 1930s (the site is under today's
Belvedere Gardens). This company was interested in this site because land here
was cheap, and this company required a great deal of space for its work. The
site was immediately adjacent to the Castle Peak Road, and the products were
sent out by lorry.
11.4.19 The
most important of these early industrial establishments at Tsuen Wan, however,
was Texaco Oil. The Government required the oil companies operating in Hong
Kong to establish their oil depots in remote places where there was no risk of
any explosion harming nearby residents. Texaco Oil chose the tip of the
headland between Tsuen Wan Bay and Gindrinkers' Bay for their depot. The site
had good sea access, and the oil was brought to the site by lighters. Road
access was also secured by a new road (Texaco Road), which was built from the
depot site to the Castle Peak Road near Kwan Mun Hau. The oil depot was
established here in the 1920s.
11.4.20 In
the years immediately after the War, the Tsuen Wan area, because of its ease of
access from the City, soon became the site of a large number of squatter-huts.
The largest concentrations were at Tai Wo Hau, on the hill between Tsuen Wan
and Kwai Chung, and on the fields of the villages north of Castle Peak Road.
Most of the squatters lived here but worked elsewhere (buses had linked Tsuen
Wan and Kowloon along the Castle Peak Road ever since the road was opened).
However, many of the squatters in the area north of the Castle Peak Road opened
small squatter factories there. Others were market gardeners, growing
vegetables in the gaps between the squatter factories. Squatters started to
move into Tsuen Wan in some numbers from the middle 1950s.
11.4.21 Also
in the middle 1950s, the Government started to use Gindrinkers' Bay as a site
to dump refuse. By the late 1950s the whole bay had been filled with refuse.
This gave the bay its current Chinese name, Lap Sap Wan (垃圾灣,
"Rubbish Bay") - the previous name was Kwai Chung Bay.
11.4.22 In
the middle 1950s, the Tsuen Wan area started to develop. The first developments
were new buildings (mostly five or six storey tenement buildings) along the
Castle Peak Road. There was no Town Plan governing the area at this time, and
the development was piecemeal and scrappy. The dangers of unplanned development
here was so great that the Government introduced a Town Plan in 1959, to
develop the area as Hong Kong's second New Town (after Kwun Tong, which began
development in 1954).
11.4.23 The
New Town plan required the reclamation of Tsuen Wan Bay. Much of the new
development was to be put on this new reclamation. The Gindrinkers' Bay area
was also to be developed, both the area reclaimed in the 1950s by the dumping
of refuse, and the hillslopes to east and west, together with the land east of
Sheung Kwai Chung at the head of the valley. Rather later, Tsing Yi was added
to the New Town, being linked to Kwai Chung, at first by one bridge (opened in
1974), later by two and then by several. The early 1970s also saw the New Town
extended by the development of the Container Port off the mouth of Gindrinkers'
Bay (the first berth opened to traffic in 1972). In the initial New Town plan,
the area north of Castle Peak Road was to be left undeveloped, but this area
was added to the New Town after the construction of the Mass Transit Railway
(opened to traffic in 1982).
11.4.24 The
first Public Housing Estate within the New Town, the Resettlement Estate at Tai
Wo Hau, was opened in 1961 (other sections were opened in 1966). Other early
Housing Estates were Fuk Loi (1963), Kwai Chung (1964), Shek Lei (1966 and
1968), Lei Muk Shue (1970), and Kwai Shing East (1972) but most of the Housing
Estates in the area were built after 1972.
11.4.25 The
largest of the squatter areas, in the Tai Wo Hau area, was cleared in the
middle 1960s for the construction of the Tai Wo Hau Resettlement Estate. The
other large squatter area, north of Castle Peak Road, was cleared for the
construction of the Mass Transit Railway.
11.4.26 Apart
from the Public Housing Estates, the New Town was developed for private housing
(originally mostly in the form of five or six storey blocks of small flats for
working-class residents, on the central part of the new reclamation area), and
industry (both at the eastern end of the new reclamation, and at the western
end, between Yau Kam Tau and Pak Tin Pai), and along the eastern side of
Gindrinkers' Bay, in the Tai Lin Pai area. Middle-class housing came mostly
rather late in the development of the New Town, in the 1980s and 1990s, with
developments such as Villa Esplanade on Tsing Yi, Riviera Garden (built over
the site of the old Texaco Depot), Wonderland Villa and Highland Park on the
hills above Lai King, Allway Garden, and Tsuen King Garden on the site of the
old Chai Wan Kok Village, Belvedere Garden and Bayview Garden on the site of
the old industrial area between Yau Kam Tau and Chai Wan Kok, and with a whole
string of fine developments along the coast between Tsuen Wan and Sham Tseng.
11.4.27 Surprisingly
little survives of the first few years of the New Town development. Many of the
first generation of the area's Public Housing Estates have been demolished and
rebuilt, as have many of the first generation of private housing blocks. The
oldest industrial area, in the Yau Kam Tau area, has completely disappeared, as
has that between Pak Tin Pai and Muk Min Ha to the north of the Castle Peak
Road (the old China Dyeworks site).
11.4.28 Development
of the New Town, however, has led to the disappearance of most of the area's
old villages. Pak Tin Pai, Chai Wan Kok, Muk Min Ha, Kwan Mun Hau, Yeung Uk,
and Ha Kwai Chung have all totally disappeared, their villagers having been
resited to new villages along the northern edge of the town. Nothing survives
of the old Market, either. A few houses survive, restored as Monuments, at Hoi
Pa, set rather forlornly in a public park which covers the site of the rest of
the old village. The main part of the village of Sam Tung Uk survives, restored
and used as a Museum. Yau Kam Tau, Lo Wai, and Sheung Kwai Chung survive as
village communities.
11.5.1
As described in Section 11.2 the criteria for consideration of impacts upon
cultural heritage as defined in the EIAO relates to identified ‘sites’ and in
general impacts upon identified sites of unique archaeological, historical or
architectural value are considered as highly significant.
11.5.2
The following section identifies those
sites, which are considered to be of cultural value. In addition, where
relevant it presents an indication of general cultural value of each village
area, including the Fung Shui. Whilst an assessment of impacts upon Fung Shui
is included for each village, this is not an identified assessment criteria of
the EIAO and therefore general recommendations are made, where necessary, to
minimize the disturbance to this element of the general cultural heritage of
the area rather than specific mitigation measures, unless these are consistent
with landscape mitigation proposals.
11.5.3
The cultural and historical heritage of
Tsuen Wan is concentrated primarily in those areas which were developed before
1959, and secondarily in the New Town Development areas developed in and after
1959. The primary area is thus all on that land which existed before the 1959
reclamation, and is centred on the old villages of that area. As can be seen
from Figure 11-1, the Tsuen Wan Road
is located a very long way from any of these areas. The villages of Chai Wan
Kok, Pak Tin Pai, Muk Min Ha, Yeung Uk, Kwan Mun Ha and Ha Kwai Chung, together
with the old Market, have all been utterly destroyed, and their sites, and all
the land close to them, have been totally destroyed. The sites have been dug
out, and new roads and multi-storey development Projects have been built over
them. There remains absolutely nothing of the slightest cultural or historical
heritage value in any of these village areas.
11.5.4
However, there are still some villages
along the alignment in the vicinity of the Works, (refer to Figure 11-1). The cultural heritage value of these villages is discussed below.
11.5.5
Of the old Tsuen Wan village areas of
which anything still survives, none are close enough to the By-pass for any
work on it to have the slightest effect on the village community or on any
remaining structures of cultural and historical heritage value. Thus, Yau Kam
Tau old village lies almost 1½ miles from the closest point of the proposed new
work, and the intervening area is very fully developed with multi-storey
residential developments. The new works will not be able to be seen from the
village, and the site is too far distant for any noise to affect the village. Furthermore,
Yau Kam Tau village contains very little of any substantial cultural or
historical heritage interest or value, the village having been almost entirely
redeveloped in recent years.
11.5.6
The restored and preserved village at Sam
Tung Uk, on the other hand, is of the highest cultural and historical heritage
value. However, it stands a full ¾ mile from the nearest point of the By-pass.
The intervening space is the heart of the 1959 New Town, a densely-packed mass
of residential buildings. There is no chance that the new By-pass works could
conceivably affect the site. The By-pass cannot be seen or heard from Sam Tung
Uk.
11.5.7
Much the same is true of the various
preserved buildings at Hoi Pa, including the three of them mentioned in EIA Study
Brief: “the Old House of Former Hoi Pa Tsuen, formerly Lot 956 (Grade III
Historical Building), the Old House at Hoi Pa Village, formerly Lot 917
(Declared Monuments), and Chan Yi Cheung Ancestral Hall, formerly Lot 972
(Grade III Historical Building)”: these all stand very close to each other at
Site "B" on Figure 10.1).
These are of very high cultural and historical heritage value, but are over ½
mile from the work-site, with a dense mass of multi-storey residential
buildings between them. The sites are out of sight and out of sound from the
Tsuen Wna Road, and the works cannot conceivably affect them. Indeed, it is
certain that, even with the most sophisticated equipment in use today, it would
be impossible even to detect that the works were in hand from the sites of the
preserved buildings, given the high ambient noise levels and the closed-in
development of the surrounding areas.
11.5.8
The Wang Fat Ching She (at Site
"A" on Figure 11-1) is one
of the religious establishments founded in Tsuen Wan in the aftermath of the
Anti-Superstition campaign in Canton in the 1920s. The temple bell, and two
sets of wooden hanging boards in the temple, have inscriptions dated 1939. This
is the date when construction of the temple was completed. This religious
establishment is of moderate cultural and historical heritage value. The She
lies very close to the Tuen Mun Highway (less than 100 metres from the line of
the road), and must have been seriously affected by the building of the
Highway. The She is affected substantially by the noise of the Highway, which
has also damaged its Fung Shui and amenity value (the Highway runs immediately
behind the She). However, the proposed upgrading works of Tusen Wan Road do not
affect the Tuen Mun Highway in the vicinity of the She. The nearest point to
the She where work will be undertaken is at the point where the Tsuen Wan Road
joins the Tuen Mun Highway. This is 300 m from the She. There are, however, no
buildings directly standing between the She and this point. The works will be
visible from the She. However, the works are neither behind nor in front of the
She, but off at one side, where the impact will be at its least significant.
The distance between the She and the works-site is far enough that the noise
nuisance of the new works will not be significant (especially given the
overwhelming impact of the Tuen Mun Highway immediately adjacent to the She,
which would certainly drown out any noise from the new works). The works-site
is of no Fung Shui significance to the She. It is considered that the proposed
By-pass widening works will not affect the She in any significant degree.
11.5.9
Nonetheless, it should be noted and kept
in mind that any changes to the works leading to changes in the development
area near the junction of the Tsuen Wan Road and the Tuen Mun Highway might
bring the works closer to the She, in which case damage might be more serious.
A screen of trees planted between the She and the junction of the Tuen Mun
Highway and the Tsuen Wan Road, while this is not considered essential as a
reaction to the works as currently envisaged, might well be considered on
general visual amenity grounds, and might become more urgent should the
works-envelope be extended in this area.
11.5.10 It
is considered that the proposals for upgrading of the Tsuen Wan Road will have
no effect on the existing archaeological potential of the area. The works will
be maintained in the urban area, which has already suffered disturbance as a result
of the original construction works and other associated construction works.
Therefore, no intrusive archaeological surveys have been deemed necessary.
11.5.11 The
ancient Tang clan grave between Pak Tin Pai and Chai Wan Kok (at Site
"C" on Figure 11-1)
is also of very high cultural and historical heritage value. This is the grave
of Tang Yuk, the founder of the greatest of the New Territories clans, the
First Ancestor of the villagers of Kam Tin, Ping Shan, Ha Tsuen, Lung Yeuk Tau,
Tai Po Tau, and Loi Tung within the New Territories, as well as many other
villages in the Tung Kuan area of China. Tang Yuk died in the middle eleventh
century. This grave is of the very highest Fung Shui importance to the
descendants of Tang Yuk. The grave has been carefully preserved, together with
the hillock on which it stands, at all dates through the development process
for Tsuen Wan. No further damage to this grave or its Fung Shui would be
acceptable. However, the grave stands a full ¼ mile from the nearest point of
the works as proposed. Between the grave and the line of the upgraded Tsuen Wan
Road is the very dense mass of one of the major Tsuen Wan Industrial Areas. The
line of the works cannot be seen from the grave, nor would any noise from the
works or the new road be detectable from the grave. The development of the
Industrial Area did damage the Fung Shui of this grave (and led to major
complaints being received from the clan at the time), and the subsequent
widening of the Castle Peak Road damaged it further, but the present proposed
works will not damage the grave or its Fung Shui in any particular.
11.5.12 No
specific mitigation measures to prevent impacts upon those identified sites of
cultural heritage importance are deemed necessary. Mitigation measures
generally relate to best practices described for other Chapters to avoid
unnecessary disturbance to villages including the provision of replacement
planting to compensate the loss of woodland and Fung Shui screen planting.
11.6.1
Key sites of cultural heritage interest
identified by the Antiquities and Monuments Office occur in Wang Fat Ching She
(WFCS) and lie at some distance from the Tsuen Wan Road (about 100 metres).
These sites will not be impacted by the proposals either directly, or
indirectly. However, it is recommended that any works leading to changes in the
development area near the junction of the Tsuen Wan Road and the Tuen Mun
Highway should be noted in order to prevent any damage on the WFCS.
11.6.2
Potential impacts of the upgrading scheme
upon existing graves site and the archaeology of the surrounding area are
considered insignificant.