Location of the former quarries of the Four hills of Kowloon

Old Quarry Site Structures, Lei Yue Mun 03

The Four Hills of Kowloon () are four hills that were historically the site of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

quarries in

Kwun Tong District Kwun Tong is one of the 18 districts of Hong Kong. It is located in Kowloon, and is the easternmost and southernmost district in Kowloon. It had a population of 648,541 in 2016. The district has the second highest population in Hong Kong, af ...

New Kowloon New Kowloon is an area in Hong Kong, bounded in the south by Boundary Street, and in the north by the ranges of the Eagle's Nest, Beacon Hill, Lion Rock, Tate's Cairn and Kowloon Peak. It covers the present-day Kwun Tong District and Wong Tai S ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

History

At the end of the 18th century,

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...

settled into the

Cha Kwo Ling Cha Kwo Ling () is a hill in the eastern New Kowloon area of Hong Kong, and the area around it. It is adjacent to Victoria Harbour and located to the west of Yau Tong and southwest of Lam Tin. Administratively, it belongs to the Kwun Tong ...

area, and quarrying became their main occupation. By that time, the villages of

Ngau Tau Kok Ngau Tau Kok is an area of eastern Kowloon in Hong Kong, in the north of Kwun Tong District east to Kowloon Bay. Largely residential, Ngau Tau Kok has a population in excess of 210,000. Geography In Chinese, Ngau Tau Kok means ''ox horn'' ...

, Sai Tso Wan and

Lei Yue Mun Lei Yue Mun is a short channel in Hong Kong. It lies between Junk Bay and Victoria Harbour, separating Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. The channel is an important passage for the city, forming the eastern entrance of Victoria Harbour. The lands ...

were collectively called ''Si Shan'' (, "Four Hills").

Civil Engineering and Development Department The Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) is a department of the Hong Kong government that reports to the Development Bureau. Its major services include provision of land and infrastructure, port and marine services, geotechnic ...

"Further Development of Tseung Kwan O. Feasibility Study. Environmental Impact Assessment. Chapter 13"
July 2005 According to a missionary who visited the area in 1844, tens of quarries were in operation along the two miles stretch in eastern Kowloon.Four hills of Kowloon
at ProjecTerrae In the early 20th century there were said to be more than 10 quarries in the Ngau Tau Kok section of the "Four Hills" alone, each employing 10 to 20 people, all Hakka with origins in the East River area of northeastern Guangdong. The

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

government appointed a headman for each "hill", in charge of ruling the area and collecting tax. The four headmen were collectively referred to as the ''Si Shan Tau Yan'' (, "Headmen of Four Hills"). The four villages also formed the ''Si Shan Kung So'' (, "Communal Hall of Four Hills"), managing the quarrying business. The headmen system ended before

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The granite blocks extracted from the Four Hills were exported via sailboat, and several piers were built along the coast. The one at Sai Tso Wan was the biggest. Today, only parts of the Lei Yue Mun pier remain.

Conservation

The Old Quarry Site Structures at

(Kowloon) have been listed as Grade III historic buildings.

References

External links

Antiquities Advisory Board The Antiquities Advisory Board (AAB) is a statutory body of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region with the responsibility of advising the Antiquities Authority on any matters relating to antiquities and monuments. The AAB was establish ...

. Historic Building Appraisal
Old Quarry Site Structures, Lei Yue Mun, Kwun Tong, KowloonPictures

Planning Review on Development of Ex-Cha Kwo Ling Kaolin Mine Site (2013)

Planning Review on Development of Ex-Cha Kwo Ling Kaolin Mine Site (final report)

Four Hills Elementary School, Cha Kwo Ling
at industrialhistoryhk.org
Moving Mountains: the Life and Mines of Ko Ming-fan
at industrialhistoryhk.org *
RTHK: ''Hong Kong Connection''. "茶果嶺的餘暉".

RTHK: ''Hong Kong Connection''. "茶果嶺的餘暉".
New Kowloon Mountains, peaks and hills of Hong Kong Kwun Tong District {{HongKong-mountain-stub

History

Conservation

See also

References

Further reading

External links