Bian Village Ancestral Hall

Bian Village Ancestral Hall

Bian Village Ancestral Hall is a cultural heritage site protected at the provincial level in Zhejiang Province.

Bian Village Ancestral Hall is located in Bian Village, Tongshan Town, Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province. According to the inscriptions on the "Reconstruction of the Grand Ancestral Hall Stele," the hall was first built in the year of Bing Shen during the Qing Dynasty, the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign (1896), and completed in the year of Bing Wu, the 32nd year of the Guangxu reign (1906). It is a complete architectural complex comprising an entrance hall, a stage, viewing galleries, a main hall, and a rear hall, covering an area of 1,800 square meters.

The ancestral hall features intricately carved beams and painted rafters, all exquisitely crafted. All the bracket arms (dou-gong) in the hall are adorned with openwork and relief carvings depicting various figures, landscapes, and floral-bird motifs. The small columns (gua-zhu) are finely carved with baskets filled with wooden flower branches, all in harmonious colors. Both the stage and the rear hall’s auditorium are topped with hemispherical caisson ceilings, intricately carved and richly ornate. The stage has a single-eave hip-and-gable roof with dragon-headed ridge ends and upturned eaves. Its surrounding eight-sided stone pillars feature bracket arms and beams with openwork or relief carvings of opera characters, making it the most well-preserved ancestral hall stage in Shaoxing. It is now a provincially designated key cultural relics protection unit.

Bian Village Ancestral Hall not only boasts exquisite carvings but also exhibits distinct architectural styles characteristic of its era, providing valuable physical evidence for the study of late Qing Dynasty architecture in the Zhejiang region.

Tongshan Town: Located in the southwestern part of Zhuji City, Tongshan Town is a mountainous rural area bordering Pujiang County to the south and west, and is about 35 kilometers from the city center. In 2001, the town covered an area of 55 square kilometers, governed 40 administrative villages, had a total of 8,348 households, a population of 23,902 (including 628 non-agricultural residents), cultivated land area of 9,469 mu, total industrial and agricultural output value of 781.98 million yuan, GDP of 181.84 million yuan (with primary industry at 50.59 million yuan, secondary industry at 101.40 million yuan, and tertiary industry at 29.85 million yuan), fiscal revenue of 5.91 million yuan, and per capita income of farmers... More details about Tongshan Town++

Further Reading:

· Third Batch of Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units