Shek Lo, Fanling

It’s been a while since I visited the Lung Yeuk Tau Heritage Trail (3 years to be precise, but who’s counting?) and impressive though it is, if a little shabby around the edges, the one thing that really struck me about it was a building that can be found right at the start of the trail.
I am of course talking about the abandoned mansion known as “Shek Lo”. At the time I didn’t think much about it but just over the past few months I’ve found out a bit more about it.

It looks a bit sad these days, though still glorious behind the flaking plaster and peeling paint, but this building has a wealth of history within its walls dating back to its construction in 1936.

The builder of the house was a man called Tsui Yan-sou, a name that is probably meaningless to most people however Mr Tsui is famous in HK because he was the founder of a well-known local college called Wah Yan College. It’s still going strong from its location on Waterloo Road in Kowloon.

As if Mr Tsui wasn’t famous enough, his son, Paul Tsui Ka Cheung will be well-known to anyone who has any knowledge of HK during the wartime Japanese Occupation. Paul attended his father’s school and went on to study at Hong Kong University. It was perhaps this last link that brought him into contact with Sir Lindsay Ride. Sir Lindsay, along with Sir Ronald Holmes and Dick Lee Ming Chak, escaped from occupied HK, evading the Japanese and getting into China and formed the B.A.A.G – British Army Aid Group.

In his memoirs (which can be found here: http://www.galaxylink.com.hk/~john/paul/paul.html) Paul describes living in Shek Lo and how, come the invasion, it was first looted by Japanese soldiers and then subsequently by local bandits.

The blurb from the official trail guide goes like this…

…situated in the east of Tsung Kyam Church,was built
in 1936 by Mr Tsui Yan-sou, the founder of Wah
Yan College. The two-storey building is a blend of
Chinese and Western Architectural styles. There is
a lawn to the front. Despite its colonial-style
characteristics, the building has a traditional Chinese
pitched roof supported on round for purlins and
timber battens with Chinese clay tiles. Another
major feature is its courtyard and the layout of
the rooms, which is similar to the layout of a
traditional Chinese residence…

The blurb also mentions that the property is still privately owned (by the Tsui family I assume?) and of course it is not accessible. Seems a shame to have such a wonderful piece of family history rotting in the middle of a field so I wonder why nothing has been done about it. Like many cases I suspect that the land rights fall to too many people who can’t agree on how to split it (the sale or the renovation that is) – a common situation in the NT.