Why go
Read its history to understand the village behind the park. Hoi Pa was a mixed-lineage Hakka settlement, and this house belonged to village scholar Yau Yuen-cheung. Its earth, brick and timber construction offers a concrete link to southern Chinese building traditions before the surrounding land became Tak Wah Park.
The full story
Yau Yuen-cheung built the Old House in 1904, when it formed part of Hoi Pa Village. The village brought together Hakka families of different lineages. The house therefore tells a domestic story about Tsuen Wan, distinct from the factories and later urban development associated with the district. Rammed earth, grey bricks, tiles and timber were the materials of this traditional southern Chinese home. The building became a declared monument in 1986. Its later use added another layer: after approved conversion work, the Tsuen Wan Environmental Resource Centre opened here in December 1997. Environmental education occupied a building made with traditional materials, within land developed as Tak Wah Park. That former centre name explains why the house appears in older descriptions of Tsuen Wan. The lasting subject is the house itself, its village origins and the changing uses of a protected building.