Sam Tung Uk Museum

Sam Tung Uk was built in 1786 by a Hakka clan that had moved into the area, a walled village on a rectangular plan with an ancestral hall on the central axis, side lanes of dwellings, and an entrance gate in the surrounding wall. The villagers were resettled in the 1970s as Tsuen Wan new town went up around them, and the buildings were restored and opened as a museum in 1987; it is a declared monument. Rooms are furnished with agricultural tools, furniture and household objects to show how the village worked, and the contrast is the point: a low grey-brick village of the eighteenth century enclosed on all sides by residential towers.

What you actually see

• The ancestral hall on the central axis - the ordering principle of the village.
• Furnished dwellings - rooms set out with tools and household objects.
• The surrounding wall and gate - the defensive plan of a Hakka village.
• Towers on every side - the new town built around the monument.

When to go

Year round. One to two hours. Closed Tuesdays. It is free and five minutes from the MTR, which makes it an easy addition to any New Territories trip.

Honest expectations

It is small and quickly seen. The reconstruction is tidy in a way a working village never was. Interpretation is basic. There is no atmosphere of a living settlement, since nobody lives here.

Nearby

Tsuen Wan is around it; Shing Mun reservoir lies north.