Hongkongers fight to save city’s only complete dragon kiln

More than 1,800 people have signed a petition urging the government to preserve Hong Kong’s only complete “dragon kiln” – a tunnel-like pottery oven usually built in the mountains – as the authorities seek to redevelop part of the historic site in Tuen Mun for public housing.

The Hong Kong Dragon Kiln Concern Group, a one-year-old organisation comprising mainly ceramic artists and hobbyists, launched an online signature campaign on Tuesday urging the public to help call for preservation before the Town Planning Board closed its public consultation session that evening.

As of 4pm on Wednesday, 1,815 signatures were collected, said Clarisse Yeung Suet-ying, a pro-democracy Wan Chai district councillor and a founding member of the concern group.

The dragon kiln is a grade three historic building located near Hin Fat Lane off Castle Peak Road in Tuen Mun, and is also known as the Castle Peak Pottery Kiln.

A 0.67 hectare area to the south of Hin Fat Lane, where the kiln has been located since the 1940s, is one of five pieces of land the government has been trying to rezone for residential purposes. The plan is to build a total of 10,700 public housing flats, among which about 1,020 would be constructed on the Hin Fat Lane site in question.