Gu Kewang Ancestral Hall

Gu Kewang Ancestral Hall

Gu Kewang Ancestral Hall is a cultural heritage site protected at the municipal level in Wuxi.

Gu Kewang Ancestral Hall is located in Shijia Lane, Huishan, Wuxi.

Gu Kewang, also known as Dongyang, was a native of Wuxi. He became a Jinshi (imperial scholar) in the ninth year of the Zhengde reign (1514) during the Ming Dynasty and served as the Vice Commissioner of the Guangdong Provincial Surveillance Commission. Known for his integrity and bold remonstrations, he was subjected to the court caning punishment twice and was a renowned upright official of the Ming era. In the fourth year of the Longqing reign (1570), his student Hai Rui, then serving as the Censor-in-Chief of Yingtian, in honor of his teacher, petitioned to have this ancestral hall built. It was destroyed by fire in the twenty-seventh year of the Kangxi reign (1688) and rebuilt in the following year. It underwent two renovations in the second year (1737) and the sixtieth year (1795) of the Qianlong reign. The extant structures of the ancestral hall, from front to back, include the main gate, front courtyard, Four-Sided Memorial Archway (only the four pillars remain), main hall, rear courtyard, and ancestral tower. To the northwest of the ancestral tower stands a structure called “Baishi Mountain House.” In front of the house is a uniquely shaped Taihu rock named “Zhanger Peak,” which is four meters tall and towers in the courtyard. This rock was one of the rare and remarkable stones found in gardens of the Jiangnan region at the time.

In July 1986, it was designated as a municipal-level cultural relics protection unit by the Wuxi Municipal People’s Government.