Che Kung Temple KCR. Follow signs to the village for 500m. Small donation expected. Tsang Tai Uk (literally “The Tsangs’ Mansion”) is one of the New Territories’ lesser touristed walled clan villages, built by a Hakka family in the 1870s. Though it is somewhat dilapidated, a visit here provides an insight into how many of the New Territories’ families used to live until skyscrapers and freeways began to dominate the area in the 1980s.

A triple gateway leads into the village, which includes a central courtyard, wide alleys, a network of high-ceilinged rooms and the shabby clan ancestral hall.

The most obvious traditional feature is the four watchtowers at each corner of the outer wall, whose high, rounded eaves are adorned with spikes to keep bad luck away. The community is still active, the village’s alleyways choked with bicycles, gas canisters, discarded furniture and drying washing.

Fortress-like clan villages are a Hakka speciality, as these people - concentrated today in Hong Kong and the southern Chinese provinces - were dislodged hundreds of years ago by warfare in their homelands in central China, and have never been sure of their welcome in places they subsequently settled.

Indeed, hakka translates as “guest family”, indicating their perpetual status as outsiders.