| Wo Hop Shek | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Chinese | 和合石 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Wo Hop Shek (Chinese: 和合石) is an area in the south of Fanling, Hong Kong. It consists of villages and recently developed housing estates. The area is famous for its large public cemetery, Wo Hop Shek Public Cemetery, on the nearby hillside. Every year, during the Ching Ming Festival and Chung Yeung Festival, many people come to visit their ancestors.
In 1950–1951, a Wo Hop Shek Branch (和合石支線) (in fact only a long siding) of Kowloon–Canton Railway was built to transport bodies of civilians killed in World War II, and later to cater the visitor in Ching Ming Festival and Chung Yeung Festival. The whole single track branch was built upon an embankment. It branched off south of Fanling station, at the start of the curve. The station at Wo Hop Shek was the most modern of all stations in Hong Kong at the time it was built, and instead of being a brick built structure as other stations were, it was of cement and steel. Special vehicles were built to carry the bodies. The branch was abandoned after the railway was electrified in 1983. No traces can be found now of the line, but the site of the station survives as a roundabout. The start of the branch is now marked by a red gate visible on the Fanling side of the Jockey Club Road bridge, which used to be a level crossing.
In 1996, Gallant Garden (or Ho Yuen, in Cantonese), in Wo Hop Shek Public Cemetery, was established for the civil servants who die of injuries during their duty. In 2000, permanent earth burial was extended to both civil servants and non-civil servants who died of exceptional bravery on duty. There is also a big Buddhist-Taoist monastery built near the cemetery. There are many shops in the villages which makes stone graves.
They are mostly public housing estates built after 1983, as reflected on the fact that part of the original trackbed of the railway branch is occupied by two of the estates.
Wo Hop Shek is a recognized village under the New Territories Small House Policy.[1]
At the time of the 1911 census, the population of Wo Hop Shek Village was 48. The number of males was 21.[2]
