New Territories Heritage Hall

*The New Territories Heritage Hall is closed for exhibition installation work.

With over 300 artefacts from the New Territories on display, the gallery consists of a series of time tunnels that lead you through over 6,000 years of New Territories history. Featuring a number of reconstructed scenes and multimedia programmes, the time tunnels trace the natural environment and the social changes that have taken place in the area and look forward to infrastructure projects and developments that are scheduled for the future.

Exhibit Highlights

Time Tunnel 1 - Natural Environment

Plant fossil Middle Jurassic (around 170 million years ago) 25 (L) x 19 (W) x 15 (H) cm Fossils allow us to reconstruct ancient ecology. This plant fossil, discovered at Tai O, shows that different kind of ferns grew in this area around 170 million years ago.

Photograph - Little Egret Wong Tin-wa The most important wetlands in Hong Kong, the Mai Po Marshes are home to over 20,000 water birds in winter. This elegant Little Egret is one of the territory's resident birds.

Blackboard showing the roster of miners at 144m level 63 (H) x 101 (W) cm

Daily Volume Record of Earth Extraction 17.5 (H) x 15 (W) cm

Time Tunnel 2 - Life in Prehistory

Pottery jug with perforated ring-foot and incised design
Kwo Lo Wan, Chek Lap Kok
Middle Neolithic Period
(4000 BC - 2500 BC)
Courtesy of the Antiquities and Monuments Office

Time Tunnel 3 - Trade and Coastal Defence

Boiling and Testing Opium in China
Artist unknown
1882
Illustration from the London News
18 (H) x 24 (W) cm

Time Tunnel 4 - Glimpse of Fishermen's Life

Photograph - Tai O pile shacks
Mak Fung
1966
20.3 (H) x 25 (W) cm

Time Tunnel 5 - Life in a Village

Drum
1956
50 (H) x 24 (Dia) cm

Used on festive and celebratory occasions. Donated by the Liu clan of Sheung Shui.

Time Tunnel 6 - British Rule

Colony Armorial Bearings
Placed at the main entrance of the Central Government Offices before the Handover in 1997.

Time Tunnel 7 - Great Transformation

Photographs - Sha Tin
Top 1970
Courtesy of the Public Record Office

Bottom 1998
Courtesy of the Information Services Department

Time Tunnel 8 - New Challenges

Speech by H. E. President Jiang Zemin at the Ceremony marking the Handover of Hong Kong
23 (H) x 15.5 (W) cm