Sanjie Hall

Sanjie Hall

Sanjie Hall is a cultural heritage site protected by Xiangshan County.

Sanjie Hall is located in Huangbu Village, Xiaotang Township, Xiangshan County. The compound faces south and features three courtyards with flagstone-paved open areas, covering an area of about 2,000 square meters. It was built during the Qing Dynasty's Qianlong era by Pan Bijin, an official serving as the Prefectural Judicial Commissioner. The main house (upper level) is a single-story building with a mixed structural system using moon beams. The side wings are two-story buildings with double eaves, with the southern slope designed in a small xieshan-style roof. The southern room of the left wing serves as the entrance gate, which originally had an octagonal screen wall outside. The building materials are robust, and the craftsmanship is precise. The beam joints of the first and second courtyards' main houses feature multiple dougong brackets and horizontal brackets—three sets in the central bay and two in the side bays. The central bays all serve as passageways, while the side bays have five-rafter beams. In the first courtyard, a wooden plaque inscribed with “Sanjie Hall” is hung above the back of the hall, explicitly reflecting the homeowner’s Confucian philosophy of “abstaining from monks, nuns, and Taoist priests.” Hence, the compound is called “Sanjie Hall.” In the second courtyard, both the main hall and the wings have square columns and square plinths on their front porches, and the front porch of the main hall features a coffered ceiling. Behind the passageway in the second courtyard, there is an ancestral shrine above, while the front partition features a “one horse three arrows” design with exposed rafter tails. Apart from the more modestly decorated principal rooms, most exposed parts of the other structures are richly ornamented, especially with exquisitely detailed wood carvings. Notably, the carving under the front eave purlin of the first courtyard’s passageway features a group of 36 deer and lingzhi mushrooms centered around a yin-yang symbol—a unique masterpiece with deer depicted in various dynamic poses. Additionally, the entire bracket atop the front porch column of the second passageway is carved into an inverted deer, finely crafted and worthy of close admiration. On October 30, 2007, it was designated as a Cultural Heritage Site under the sixth batch of Xiangshan County-level protections.