Ip Ting-sz's residence at Lin Ma Hang Tsuen in Sha Tau Kok and Yan Tun Kong Study Hall and its adjoining land at Hang Tau Tsuen in Ping Shan, Yuen Long, have been declared monuments in a notice gazetted today.

The Antiquities & Monuments Office will conduct restoration works on the sites, costing $7.6 million and $6.9 million. Both buildings will open to the public when works complete in 2011.

Past future: Ip Ting-sz's residence in Sha Tau Kok and Yan Tun Kong Study Hall in Yuen Long have been declared monuments.

Ip Ting-sz was the Ip clan's eighth generation ancestor in Lin Ma Hang, Sha Tau Kok. He was one of the co-founders of Dr Sun Yat-sen's Chinese Association, and Dr Sun's Tong Meng Hui (United League) member in Thailand. Ip and his family returned to settle in Lin Ma Hang Tsuen in 1936 where he died in 1943.

Ip's 1908-built residence is modelled on Dr Sun's residence in Cuiheng Village, Zhongshan. Made of green bricks and timber with a pitched Chinese tiled roof and external walls embellished with murals of auspicious motifs, it is a blend of Chinese and Western architectural features. It was built in a symmetrical layout with a covered porchway with columns supporting the balcony with ceramic vase-shaped balusters on the first floor.

The study hall is a three-hall building with two open courtyards. It was originally built by Ping Shan's Tang clan to commemorate their prominent 14th to 16th generation ancestors. The engraved characters of "re-carved in the ninth year of Tongzhi reign" (1870) on the wooden plaque hanging over the main hall suggests it underwent large-scale renovation in 1870.

The hall was built to educate the clan's youngsters to prepare them for the imperial civil service examinations. Its side rooms were provided as instructors' accommodation. It was converted into a teaching venue for village children after the exam was abolished. Its function as a study hall gradually faded with the founding of Tat Tak School in Ping Shan in the 1930s.

It still serves as an ancestral hall for traditional clan festivals and activities, such as ancestor worship during the Spring and Autumn Equinox, weddings and celebrations.