Should ancient wells stay or go? The experts disagree

A disagreement has arisen over the future of relics unearthed at a railway construction site in Kowloon City between conservationists who want them preserved as they are and archaeologists who want to pull them to pieces for study.

Four wells dating back to periods between the Song dynasty and the 1960s and thousands of artefacts have been removed from the site of the Sha Tin-Central link's To Kwa Wan station.

The government has announced that one square well dating back to the Song (960-1279AD) or Yuan (1279-1368) dynasties will stay where it is. But the future of two other wells, one square and one round, and a collection of relics including a nullah and house structures from the same period remains uncertain.

Independent historian Anthony Chan Tin-kuen said it was hard to judge yet how much of the site should be preserved, but in general in situ preservation was the preferred option for conservation and education.

"By seeing the historic wells and the Sung Wong Toi boulder, albeit the latter has been moved, people can reconstruct the location of the former Sacred Hill," he said, referring to a now-removed outcrop with stone inscriptions, represented today by a fragment that was moved to the present Sung Wong Toi Park in 1959.

The Hong Kong Archaeological Society, which is made up of archaeologists and people from other professions, has released a proposal to build a museum at the future station so that the relics can be preserved in situ while trains run deeper underground.