Yan'en Hall

Yan'en Hall

Yan'en Hall (No. 110 Xintian Street)

It is located to the west of Daqiangmen and faces south. Built in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republican period, it was originally the residence of Jin Shen’an and later purchased by the Zhou family, becoming the home of Zhou Rengji. The first section of Yan'en Hall originally had three bays of single-story rooms. After the Zhou family acquired the property, they converted the single-story structure into a building before the nationwide liberation and added a gate tower behind the house, which was inscribed with the characters “Excellence Comes from Diligence” (业精于勤). This inscription was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. The entrance doorway on the ground floor is set back about 50 centimeters inward, while the stone gate faces outward. The second section also has three floors above and below, but due to the terrain, the layout is irregular — the eastern room is missing a corner on the northern side, forming a pentagon, while the western room is narrower at the north and wider at the south, forming a trapezoid. The ground floor forms a single undivided hall. In front of the hall is a central stone-paved courtyard. The eastern wing is a multi-story room, while the western wing is an irregular octagonal single-story kitchen. Behind the building is a large courtyard planted with many flowers and trees, and there is also a woodshed to the north of the courtyard. The entire property consists of two sections with 16 rooms, covering 241 square meters. It was listed as a newly discovered cultural relic during the third national cultural relics survey in 2008 and has been placed under protection.