Former Site of Hefeng Cotton Mill

Former Site of Hefeng Cotton Mill

The former site of Hefeng Cotton Mill is a cultural heritage site protected at the provincial level in Zhejiang Province.

The former site of Hefeng Cotton Mill is located at No. 317 Jiangdong East Road, Jiangdong District, Ningbo. According to the *Ningbo Annals*, the mill was established in 1905 by a group of 21 individuals including Dai Ruiqing, who founded the "Hefeng Textile Co., Ltd." (commonly referred to as Hefeng Cotton Mill). Initially built in Bingchanggen, Jiangdong, Ningbo, it covered an area of 53,000 square meters. The surviving structures include an office building and a finished goods workshop.

Structure

The office building, also known as the “little Western-style house,” is a two-story building in a Western style featuring an outer corridor. It has a hipped roof. The upper and lower floors share the same structural decoration, each with three bays facing the front, a surrounding veranda, and mixed Ionic and Corinthian-style column capitals. The exterior walls are a mix of red and gray, giving the structure a rich form and a stately appearance. The interior features Western-style decorations, with both rooms and corridor ceilings adorned with plaster moldings and ceiling medallions. The original long-strip wooden flooring remains well-preserved. The secondary bay on the west side houses a staircase with turned wooden handrails. The finished goods workshop, built in 1905, has relatively tall walls and gable decorations in the form of Guanyin hood motifs. A staircase on the eastern exterior wall leads to the second floor, while a single-story structure on the northeastern side, originally used as an office building, features a gable-and-hip roof. The exterior walls are solid brick masonry, decorated with red bricks forming ornamental lines. Hefeng Cotton Mill is not only a significant historical textile enterprise in Ningbo and even the nation’s modern textile industry history but also one of the “three and a half chimneys” representing pre-liberation industrial Ningbo.

Significance

Preserving this site holds great importance for studying the development history of Ningbo’s modern textile industry. The current Hefeng Creative Plaza project is underway as a key municipal initiative. In 2011, the site was designated as part of the sixth batch of Provincial Cultural Heritage Protection Units in Zhejiang Province. The site is open to the public free of charge.

Further Reading:

· Sixth Batch of Provincial Cultural Heritage Protection Units in Zhejiang Province