Pre-war Beaches and Swimming Sheds

The government started to encourage people to swim at beaches in the early 20th Century. Some academic literature traces this back to the aftermath of the plague outbreak of 1894. At the time, the colonial government considered Chinese-populated districts to be overcrowded and unhygienic, so in addition to demolishing the Tai Ping Shan neighbourhood, some intellectuals advocated creating spaces of public recreation to improve people’s physical and mental well-being. In the western medical understanding of the 19th Century, sea air and saltwater were thought to heal the body of disease.  So drawing upon a British culture of sea bathing, some unofficial members of the Legislative Council proposed the establishment of seaside resorts. Following the 1911 Revolution in China, the Nationalists promoted swimming as a way to strengthen the nation through physical fitness, and the pastime became increasingly popular among urbanites. 

In the 1910s and 1920s, the Sanitary Board began leasing land to private investors for the development and operation of swimming sheds, especially along the waterfronts of North Point’s Seven Sisters and Kennedy Town. Swimming sheds (泳棚 wing6 paang4) were bamboo huts built along the shore to provide swimmers with direct ladder access to the water. The government even built a bamboo pier at North Point Beach so swimmers could walk out into the water at low tide. Admission to North Point Beach cost ten cents, which was not expensive by the standards of the time. During summer, taking the tram to North Point or Kennedy Town for a swim became a popular leisure activity for urban residents.

In Kowloon, the government opened the first official beaches at Stonecutters Island in 1921 and at Tai Wan, Hung Hom, in 1923. While Stonecutters Island Beach became restricted to military personnel in 1927, Tai Wan Beach remained in use by the public until after World War II. Some local residents even applied to set up swimming sheds there, but the structures were destroyed by a typhoon in 1964.

As swimming grew in popularity, swimming sheds acquired more functions. In addition to providing access ladders into the water, they also served as changing rooms and places to store personal belongings. Some shed operators added shark nets and even food and beverage outlets. More and more sheds sprang up in North Point and Kennedy Town, and soon even as far as Lai Chi Kok in Kowloon. In more remote areas such as Tsuen Wan and Repulse Bay, swimming sheds and sea-bathing facilities also began to appear, though these were largely accessible only to those who could afford to travel by car. Wealthier individuals could even apply to the government to set up private swimming sheds. By 1935, there were more than 170 private swimming sheds in the New Territories, most of them along Castle Peak Road. In Repulse Bay, a large private bathing and entertainment complex called the Lido was built in the 1930s. The name comes from the Italian for a beach or open-air bathing place, reflecting the flourishing seaside leisure scene of the time. 

Post-war era: from swimming sheds to beach huts

In the post-war years as Hong Kong rebuilt itself from scratch, many beaches and swimming shed sites were resumed for development or disappeared under reclamation. However, swimming sheds did not cease to exist, but simply spread out to increasingly distant beaches along the coastline. The colonial government recognized the need to provide the public with affordable and accessible seaside recreation, and gradually introduced basic infrastructure to beaches such as public transport links and changing rooms. 

In 1946, the Urban Council set up a special committee to consult the public on beach policy. In 1948, it opened the first three public beaches: 11½ Milestone on Castle Peak Road (now Lido Beach), 18½ Milestone on Castle Peak Road (now Cafeteria New Beach), and Nam Tau Sha (now Silverstrand Beach). At the same time, people were still allowed to apply to erect or lease beach tents that existed before the war for private use, so beaches featured a mixture of public and private facilities. 

The process of relocating and rebuilding seaside facilities saw the rickety bamboo swimming sheds of the pre-war era (泳棚 wing6 paang4) replaced by sturdy brick and concrete structures (泳屋 wing6 uk1). This article will call the latter “beach huts” for the sake of differentiation, but the English terminology used at the time was less clear cut, and the LCSD still confusingly calls them “bathing sheds”.

Newspapers in the 1950s reported that the government sorted swimming shed sites into three categories: Grade A sites came with an intact structure, Grade B sites were somewhat dilapidated, and Grade C sites had only vacant land, requiring tenants to build new beach huts according to building specifications provided by the government. 

By 1952, parts of Approach Beach between Yau Kom Tau and Ting Kau were leased for building beach huts, replacing the temporary tents used by swimmers. Eventually, 50 beach huts were built in this area.

These beach huts later spread widely along the Castle Peak Road coastline and in the Southern District of Hong Kong Island, such as South Bay. Today, all beach huts (bathing sheds) are managed by the LCSD, and most tenants are swimming associations or water-sports organisations. These sheds are divided by size into small, medium, and large, with the majority concentrated along the beaches of Castle Peak Road. Compared with the early temporary swimming sheds, these new brick and concrete beach huts reflected the government’s growing institutionalisation of beach use.

In the past, the government’s beach management had been quite lax, but after repeated drowning cases, the British army and foreign police officers introduced lifesaving training and exams in 1940. In 1956, the Hong Kong Life Saving Society was founded, and initially, lifeguards at beaches were largely volunteers. 

After the riots of 1967, the government reevaluated youth and recreational policy and concluded that a key problem was that young people lacked outlets for their energy. The 1970s therefore saw heavy public investment in a wide range of recreational facilities. As large numbers of swimming sheds on both sides of Victoria Harbour were lost to reclamation, the government began to build public swimming pools as replacement. For example, Tai Wan Shan Swimming Pool in Hung Hom was built to replace the swimming shed at Tai Wan Beach. 

Against this background, the government started to gazette and formally define the boundaries of especially popular beaches, systematically introducing a package of supporting facilities and services such as lifeguarding and first-aid during the swimming season, snack kiosks, barbecue areas, changing rooms, shark nets, and floating platforms. The basic familiar features of Hong Kong’s public beaches took shape during this period. 

The story of Tsuen Wan’s seven beaches

In the 1970s and 80s, the government gazetted several public beaches along Castle Peak Road in response to growing public demand. A cluster of seven beaches in Tsuen Wan became particularly well-known, including Angler’s Beach, Approach Beach, Casam Beach, Gemini Beach (which is actually two adjacent beaches), Hoi Mei Beach, Lido Beach and Ting Kau Beach. The area’s beaches were already attracting swimmers as far back as the 1930s, who built swimming sheds along the shore.

Some of these beaches’ names have interesting origin stories. The one at the 10½ Milestone on Castle Peak Road was named Approach Beach, being closest to the city. The beach at the 11½ Milestone was named Lido Beach, which as mentioned earlier, came from the Italian word for beach. In the 1930s, the word was adopted into British English to refer to outdoor public swimming areas, and the name was also applied to other swimming facilities in North Point and Repulse Bay. Lido Beach became one of the first beaches to be listed as a public beach under government management in 1948. 

The next beach down was named Casam Beach in English, transliterated into Cantonese as “更生” (gang3 sang1) meaning “rebirth”. “Casam” is Latin for “small house”, which might have referred to the numerous beach huts there, but it may also have been named after the Casam Club, a joint social club for the Civil Aid Services and Auxiliary Medical Services in the 1950s. Casam Beach and Lido Beach were among the first batch of gazetted beaches in 1975. 

Soon after, Anglers’ Beach, Ting Kau Beach, Gemini Beach and Hoi Mei Beach along Castle Peak Road were also gazetted. They were very popular among the public in the 1970s and 1980s due to their proximity to the city, but by the late 1980s, their water quality had become severely degraded by sewage discharge along the Tsuen Wan Coast and oil pollution from the container port development. Construction of the Tsing Ma Bridge in the 1990s further worsened conditions, and the government closed all seven beaches down in 1995, suspending lifeguard services. It was not until the 2010s that they were gradually reopened.

To this day, swimming at the beach remains a summer routine for many Hong Kong residents, and beach facilities have been continuously improved over time. In recent years, the government has also built artificial beaches such as Golden Beach and the controversial Lung Mei Beach in response to public demand. 

Looking back on a century of swimming, the shape of Hong Kong’s seaside recreation has undergone significant changes, from privately-operated swimming sheds, to beach huts leased to the public by the government, to today’s 42 gazetted beaches with standardized public facilities. This evolution shows a shift from spontaneous grassroots activities to a structured and regulated practice. It also demonstrates how the coastline has been continually reshaped, planned, and managed to cater to the leisure needs of a modern city.

This article was written by contract researcher Ng Cheuk Hang.

References

Poon Shuk-wah & Wong Wing-ho. “Leisure, Seaside and Sea Bathing: A History of Swimming in Hong Kong (閒暇、海濱與海浴 : 香江游泳史)”, 2020 . Joint Publishing (H.K.) Co., Ltd.

“BATHING BEACH RECOMMENDATIONS”, The China Mail, 16 April, 1947.

〈分在港九各選一海灘 租給市民自建游泳屋 年租五十元 五年後交還政府〉(“Select One Beach Each in Hong Kong and Kowong to Rent to Citizens for Self-built Swimming Huts; Annual Rent Fifty Dollars, Return to Government After Five Years”), Wah Kiu Yat Po, 26 September 1952.

〈新界十咪半海灘泳屋址五十個出租申請租用者將舉行抽籖分配〉(“Fifty Swimming Hut Sites at 10½ Mile Beach, New Territories, Available for Rent; Applicants to Be Allocated by Lottery”), Wah Kiu Yat Po, 15 November 1952.