The Bei Family Ancestral Hall (Wuzhong Bei Family Memorial Hall)

The Bei Family Ancestral Hall (Wuzhong Bei Family Memorial Hall)

The Bei Family Ancestral Hall (Wuzhong Bei Family Memorial Hall) is a cultural tourism attraction.

The Bei Family Ancestral Hall (Wuzhong Bei Family Memorial Hall) is located at No. 603 Shantang Street. It was originally the Chastity and Filial Piety Shrine of Cheng Shi, wife of Bei Qizuo, a Confucian scholar of the Ministry of Rites during the Qing Dynasty. Bei Qizuo and his wife, Lady Bei Chengshi, were the fourth generation of the Bei family. According to the "Gazetteer of the Reign of Qianlong," Lady Bei Chengshi was extremely filial. When her elderly father fell ill with ulcerated wounds, she personally sucked out the poison to save him, nearly contracting the disease herself and coming close to death. At the age of 27, after her husband passed away, she observed mourning for 32 years, supporting herself by spinning hemp and raising their seven-year-old child into adulthood through hardship.

To commemorate Lady Bei Chengshi’s contributions to the Bei family, the seventh-generation descendant Bei Muting built the Bei Family Ancestral Shrine, also known as the Chastity and Filial Piety Shrine, at the foot of Tongqiao Bridge in Bantang, near Tiger Hill and Shantang. The renowned architect I.M. Pei was the fifteenth-generation descendant of the Bei family. The deeds of the Bei family are detailed in the book "Famous and Influential Families of Suzhou."

The front and rear halls of the ancestral shrine were respectively destroyed in 1959 during the construction of a railway and in 1998 during the building of Wanfu Bridge on the North Ring Road. The memorial archway was dismantled and preserved with numbering during the expansion of the North Ring Road in 2007. The Bei Family Ancestral Hall has now been restored 50 meters east of its original site. The preserved and numbered memorial archway will be relocated to the entrance of the Bei Family Ancestral Hall. The architecture of the Bei Family Ancestral Hall consists of two sections: the eastern section has three courtyards of auxiliary rooms, while the western section houses the main ancestral hall. A west garden has been built along the terrain on the western side of the hall. The site covers an area of 680 square meters, with a total floor area of 330 square meters.