Ng Tung Chai (), also known as Wong Fung Chai (), is a village in

Lam Tsuen Lam Tsuen () is an area in Tai Po District, Hong Kong, noted for its Lam Tsuen wishing trees. The nearby Lam Tsuen River, empties into Tolo Harbour, Tai Po Hoi. Villages Lam Tsuen is not a village in the political sense but rather a union o ...

Tai Po District Tai Po District is one of the 18 districts of Hong Kong. The suburban district covers the areas of Tai Po New Town (including areas such as Tai Po Market, , Tai Po Industrial Estate, Tai Wo Estate), Tai Po Tau, Tai Po Kau, Hong Lok Yuen, ...

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 Delta i ...

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
Yau Ancestral Hall, Ng Tung Chai
/ref> It is the departure point of a trail leading to a group of waterfalls, on the northern slope of

Tai Mo Shan Tai Mo Shan is the highest peak in Hong Kong, with an elevation of . It is located at approximately the geographical centre of the New Territories. The Tai Mo Shan Country Park covers an area of around Tai Mo Shan. It is located to the n ...

Recognised status

Ng Tung Chai is a recognised village under the

New Territories The New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of Hong Kong. Historically, it ...

Small House Policy The Small House Policy (SHP, ) was introduced in 1972 in Hong Kong. The objective was to improve the then prevailing low standard of housing in the rural areas of the New Territories. The Policy allows an indigenous male villager who is 18 ye ...

History

Ng Tung Chai was established in 1739, or possibly earlier. It was historically a

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 ...

village, mainly inhabited by members of the Yau (), Sham () and Koo () families.

. Historic Building Appraisal
Shum Study Hall, No. 28 Ng Tung Chai
/ref> At the time of the 1911 census, the population of Ng Tung Chai was 129. The number of males was 61.

Built heritage

There are three

ancestral hall An ancestral shrine, hall or temple ( or , vi, Nhà thờ họ; Chữ Hán: 家祠户), also called lineage temple, is a temple dedicated to deified ancestors and progenitors of surname lineages or families in the Chinese tradition. Ancestra ...

s in Ng Tung Chai, namely the Koo Ancestral Hall (), the Shum Ancestral Hall () and the Yau Ancestral Hall (). The Yau Ancestral Hall was built around 1800. It has been listed as a Grade III historic building. There were also two study halls, the Shum Study Hall (), now ruined, and the Tung Hing Tong (). The Shum Study Hall, which has a history of about 100 years, provided night school for the children and adults of the village. It closed in 1950 due to the opening of the . The Tung Hing Tong was built by the trust of the village and was rebuilt in 1983.

Man Tak Yuen

() is a

Taoist temple A Taoist temple (, also called ''dàoguàn'' and , is a place where the Tao is observed and cultivated it is a place of worship in Taoism. Structure and function can vary according to the Taoist school the temple belongs to. For example, ''guà ...

located to the south of Ng Tung Chai village, along the path leading to the waterfalls. Man Tak Yuen was established in the mid-1970s by Man Tak Chi Sin Seh (). Man Tak Chi Sin Seh had been founded in 1951 in Kowloon, worshipping Lu Tsu (). Lu Tsu Hall () of Man Tak Yuen was completed in 1977. Jik Dak Pavilion (), built in 1981, is intended to be used to pray for rain. Several additional halls were built during the 1990s.

Waterfalls

form a group of four waterfalls, located south of Ng Tung Chai Village and within

Tai Mo Shan Country Park Tai Mo Shan is the highest peak in Hong Kong, with an elevation of . It is located at approximately the geographical centre of the New Territories. The Tai Mo Shan Country Park covers an area of around Tai Mo Shan. It is located to the n ...

. They are, in ascending order, Bottom Fall (aka. Well Falls), Middle Fall (aka. Horse-tail Falls), Main Fall (aka. Long Fall) and Scatter Fall. Main Fall features a drop of 35 metres and is considered as the highest waterfall in Hong Kong.

Flora

The Ng Tung Chai

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion.Tai Mo Shan Tai Mo Shan is the highest peak in Hong Kong, with an elevation of . It is located at approximately the geographical centre of the New Territories. The Tai Mo Shan Country Park covers an area of around Tai Mo Shan. It is located to the n ...

, covering an area of 226 hectares, is floristically one of the richest places in Hong Kong. Species found there include ''

dysoxylum ''Dysoxylum'' is a flowering plant genus of trees and shrubs from the mahogany family, Meliaceae. Botanical science has recorded about eighty species in this genus, growing widely across the regions of Malesia, the western Pacific ocean, Austr ...

hongkongense'', '' dendrobenthamia hongkongensis'', ''

machilus ''Machilus'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lauraceae. It is found in temperate, subtropical, and tropical forest, occurring in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Indochina, the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philip ...

'', ''

asplenium nidus :''See bird's-nest fern for other plants with this common name.'' ''Asplenium nidus'' is an epiphytic species of fern in the family Aspleniaceae, native to tropical southeastern Asia, eastern Australia, Hawaii (''ʻēkaha'' in Hawaiian), Poly ...

'', '' cyathea spinulosa'' and '' paris chinensis''. The area was designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1979. ''

Aquilaria sinensis ''Aquilaria sinensis'' is a species of plant in the family Thymelaeaceae. It is endemic to China. It is threatened by habitat loss. This medicinal plant is a source of fragrant wood, formed under a pathological condition, called ''Chen Xiang'' ...

'', sometimes referred to as '

Incense Incense is aromatic biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burnt. The term is used for either the material or the aroma. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, religious worship, aromatherapy, meditation, and ceremony. It may also b ...

Tree', can also be found in Ng Tung Chai. The tree is said to usually occur in Hong Kong in natural woodland on lower hill slopes and in fung shui woods behind villages.

Access

Ng Tung Chai is served by KMB Route 64K and

green minibus The public light bus or minibus is a public transport service in Hong Kong. It uses minibuses to serve areas that standard Hong Kong bus lines cannot reach efficiently. The vehicles are colloquially known by the code-switch ' (Van Jái) lite ...

Route 25K. Both routes have stops at Ng Tung Chai, along .

References

External links

Delineation of area of existing village Ng Tung Chai (Tai Po) for election of resident representative (2019 to 2022)
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. Historic Building Appraisal
Pictures of Yau Ancestral Hall, Ng Tung Chai
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. Historic Building Appraisal
Pictures of Shum Study Hall, No. 28 Ng Tung Chai

Webpage about a potential former 'Ng Tung Chai Mine'
{{coord, 22.437389, 114.127917, display=title Villages in Tai Po District, Hong Kong Lam Tsuen