NOTES AND QUERIES
The five graves may be summed up chronologically as follows:
(1) TANG Hon-fat
(2) TANG Kun
(3) TANG Yuk
(4) TANG Fu-hip
(5) TANG Wai-kap
Hong Kong, Nov. 1976
183
(Yuk Nui Pai Tong) near Wang Chau.
Yuen Long.
(Kam Chung Fook Fo) on a small hill
behind Pok Oi Hospital.
(Pun Yuet Chiu Tam) Tsuen Wan on
Castle Peak Road.
(Sin Yan Tai Tso) near Wang Chau,
Yuen Long.
(Wu Lei Kuo Shui) near Au Tau cross-
roads.
DAVID LIU
ACCOUNT OF THE VISIT
On Saturday, 11th December, 1976 some thirty members of the Society visited the five main graves of the Tang family of Kam Tin and other old established villages in the New Territories (see the programme notes above).
We first visited grave No. 3 in Tsuen Wan which is located on a small hill that was bought by the family in 1927 to protect the grave in the face of various encroachments. In addition to the grave, there exist two round granite pillars (similar to those at graves 1 and 4 but without their lion-dog tops). These are situated each at a distance of 132 feet and angles of 125 and 217 degrees from the centre of the grave, as measured standing at the main table with the compass pointing north.* Lower down, a little off the main road there is also part of an entrance, built of inscribed rectangular granite pillars, erected in the 4 year which the Tang elders say is, in this case, 1894.
Mr. Peplow was Land Bailiff, Southern District at the time the Tangs purchased the land in 1927, and his account,† quoting from a silk scroll given to him by one of the Tangs, is as follows:
† S. H. Peplow Hong Kong About and Around (Hong Kong Commercial Press 1930) pp. 148-149.
* I have since learned from the Tangs that the two pillars stood further to the front of the grave, nearer the former shore line, and that they were moved to their present location when the first Castle Peak motor road was constructed about 1917-1919.