Chengsitang

Chengsitang

Chengsitang (No. 34, Fujue Street)

It is situated to the west of Nanqigan and to the east of Shipi Lane, facing south toward the river. Built in the late Qing Dynasty, it was the residence of Wu Chuansheng. The property consists of three sections with a total of nine rooms covering 195 square meters. The first section of Chengsitang is a wall-gate room, featuring a set of four bamboo-woven lattice gates facing the street. Originally, there was a rear gate in the middle, and above it, a small upper room that once served as a family ancestral shrine; the second section is a passageway room. In 1963, it underwent major repairs after the eaves collapsed, during which a corridor was created, with the eastern part used as a storage room. From the 1980s onward, local calligraphy teacher Zhang Jianhua turned it into the “Hanshi Studio” calligraphy room; the third section, located to the west near Shipi Lane, is a three-bay building. The courtyard in front of the building is narrow on the east side and wider on the west, with a wing room on the western side of the courtyard and a kitchen to the south of the wing room, which originally belonged to the neighboring Gu Bingsheng family. Although the buildings no longer have gate towers or carvings, the walls still feature bolt holes from former storage doors, and both courtyards are paved with small pebbles. In 2008, it was listed as a newly discovered cultural relic during the third national cultural relics survey and has since been placed under protection.