Sunken village, opium boxes and soda water bottles give researchers glimpse of life at 100-year-old Hong Kong reservoir
Tai Tam Waterworks Heritage Trail was established in 2009 and comprises 41 historic waterworks facilities – but university team uncovers so much more
A University of Hong Kong academic is calling for more historical landmarks around the century-old Tai Tam Tuk Reservoir to be included in a popular waterworks heritage trail.
These include the four brick caissons still protruding from Tai Tam Harbour, remnants of a pier, ruins of office buildings and workers’ quarters and a submerged Hakka village that was resettled in 1912 to make way for work on the reservoir on the south side of Hong Kong Island.
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The Tai Tam Waterworks Heritage Trail was established in 2009 and comprises 41 historic waterworks facilities including the Tai Tam Tuk dam itself.
The relics found in the catchment of the 100-year-old piece of infrastructure – one of four impounding reservoirs in the Tai Tam group – were among several documented in a two-year research project led by Dr Poon Sun-wah of HKU’s department of real estate and construction.
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“The initial research had been to look at the development of Hong Kong’s granite geology at To Tei Wan,” he said, referring to the site of a disused quarry which supplied the stone for the dam.