The Jiao Family Ancestral House

The Jiao Family Ancestral House

The Jiao Family Ancestral House is a cultural heritage site protected by Zhangjiagang City.

The Jiao Family Ancestral House is located at No. 57 Xiangyang Lane, Yangshe Town. It was built in the early Republican era by brothers Jiao Lüying and Jiao Zaizhou, who were figures in the business and industrial sectors. The entire structure faces south, has a width of five bays, and consists of four courtyards. The first three courtyards are single-story buildings with a flush gable roof, constructed from brick and wood, while the last courtyard is a two-story brick building with five bays. The main gate features a door frame made of golden granite slabs, adorned with bosses on the surface, and decorative bead patterns along the frame. Symmetrical thunder cloud motifs flank the door frame. Each courtyard has an open-air front yard paved with gray side bricks featuring decorative patterns, all uniformly sized and neatly arranged. The first courtyard consists of five single-story rooms with a flush gable roof, built from brick and wood, and seven columns deep. The central entrance hall has six plain wooden doors, and the rooms are partitioned with wooden boards. The back door frame is made of golden granite, and the walls on either side of the back door have square holes (used for installing door bars). The second courtyard also has five single-story rooms, seven columns deep, with a flush gable roof built from brick and wood. There are wing rooms on both sides, with double eaves and butterfly-patterned wooden windows. The central entrance hall has six plain wooden doors, and the main gate is long and narrow, with a symmetrical arrangement of lattice-patterned carvings on the upper part. The floor is paved with blue-gray bricks. The third courtyard similarly contains five single-story rooms, seven columns deep, and is largely similar in structure to the second courtyard. The center of the roof ridge is decorated with a decorative square spiral pattern, and the ends once featured exquisite brick carvings that were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. The fourth courtyard consists of five rooms forming a two-story brick and wood structure. The brickwork is finely laid and left unrendered, and the staircase is made of wood. Between the third and fourth courtyards, there is an ancient square well, with a bluestone well curb connected to the well platform. This house is a typical example of an early Republican-era Jiangnan-style residential courtyard and is currently the only well-preserved Republican-era building remaining in downtown Zhangjiagang. It was designated as a cultural heritage site protected by Zhangjiagang City in 2002.