Former Site of the Sique Street Detention House

Former Site of the Sique Street Detention House

The former site of the Sique Street Detention House is a Suzhou Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The former site of the Sique Street Detention House is located on Sique Street and was designated as a Suzhou Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Unit in 2004.

Constructed during the Qing Dynasty, it functioned as the Jiangsu Provincial Surveillance Institute Jail and the Suzhou Prefecture Jail during the Xuantong era, and as the detention facility of the Jiangsu High Procuratorate (Court) during the Republican period. Shi Liang, one of the “Seven Gentlemen of Patriotism,” was once held in the women’s jail (this cellblock was referred to as the “Seven Gentlemen Jail” after liberation). Soong Ching-ling once visited the site, and during the Wang Jingwei puppet regime, it served as the detention facility of the puppet Wuxian County Court. The prison is said to have been designed by Bei Jimian of the Suzhou Bei family, featuring a radial floor plan in the shape of a Chinese character “米” (rice), with four access corridors and four cellblocks radiating outward. At the center is an octagonal guard platform, with cellblocks located along both sides of the corridors.