San Tin Village was historically a single-clan village of the Lau (劉), and it now features the Lau Ancestral Hall (劉氏家祠). The Lau were Hakkas who first moved from Huizhou to Au Pui Wan Tsuen near Grassy Hill, northwest of Sha Tin, during the 18th century. They were farmers engaged in cultivation. As their population increased, they bought a piece of land from the Kak Tin and Tin Sam villages and established a new village called 'San Tin' (lit. "new field") in the late 1890s.[2] At the time of the 1911 census, the population of San Tin was 109.[3]