Many a time we came across photos on internet of unknown or obscure origin. Just isolated photos, with missing links.
I saw a photo with similar piled houses before, which is attributed to Schofield. But how his archaeology interests may be related to Tai O ?
original caption of the photo : Fronts and backs of sheds at Tai O Creek
In fact, there is an article quoting Walter Schofield's notebooks (with his detailed text) and reprinted on the RASHK journal in 1970.
So this should help to re-connect the time, place and people again in the history space.
The image is posted here for illustration only. Readers please refer to the RASHK journal directly for study. One online copy resides on the HKUL digital repository (link).
There are actually three photos reprinted, as taken by Schofield during his field trip on 19th January, 1937. One of them posted on gwulo before (link).
Two plans of the sheds, with measurements, redrawn(+) from Schofield's notebook are also included within the said article (pls refer to the copy on JSTOR instead).
reference
Journal of RASHK, 1970
(+) e.g. Fig. 1 shows a typical Shed No. 469, Yee Chung, Tai O (which is 8 feet above the waters at midtide)
二 涌