Ruilin Bridge

Ruilin Bridge

Ruilin Bridge

Located southwest of No. 100, Gucheng Road, Tianning Community, Tianning Town. It is recorded on the Twenty-District Map in the Jiashan County Annals from the 20th year of the Guangxu reign during the Qing Dynasty. The bridge is also known as Lion Bridge due to the lions carved on its balusters. In January 2004, it was designated as a county-level cultural relics protection site. In April 2017, together with Yuantong Bridge, Anba Bridge, Anfu Bridge, and Sanlitang Bridge, it was grouped as the “Tianning Ancient Bridges Cluster” and declared a provincial-level cultural relics protection unit.

Covering an area of 66 square meters, Ruilin Bridge is a three-arch stone slab flat bridge that runs north–south across the Tianning South Market River. The bridge is 26.3 meters long, with a deck width of 2.1 meters and abutments 2.5 meters wide. The piers are built vertically using four stone slabs, and the deck is paved with four long stone slabs. It features solid parapets and four pairs of balusters, with the tops of the balusters carved into stone lions—13 steps on the north side and 13 on the south. This bridge was first built during the Qing Dynasty and continues to play an important role in the daily life and production of local residents. Its most distinctive feature is the pier structure composed of four vertical stone slabs, the stone railings, and the four pairs of balusters, whose tops are carved with lions sitting in various poses. Unfortunately, one of the eight stone lions has been damaged and destroyed.

Tianning Town: The water town of Tianning is located in the northwest of Jiashan County, Zhejiang Province, situated in the Hangjiahu Plain and within the hinterland of Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou—part of the golden Yangtze River Delta region. It is 90 kilometers east of the international metropolis Shanghai, 110 kilometers west of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, 60 kilometers north of Suzhou, a key city in southern Jiangsu, and 45 kilometers east of the major port of Zhapu. The Hongqi Pond runs through the town, connecting the Huangpu River to the east and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to the west. The town covers an area of 21.7 square kilometers with a population of 22,000. Tianning features flat terrain, a dense network of waterways, constant boat traffic, and a picturesque scene of sails dotting the landscape. It has long been known as the “Land of Fish and Rice and the Pearl of Aquatic Products”... More details about Tianning Town++