Tieyan Mountain House

Tieyan Mountain House

Tieyan Mountain House is a cultural relic protection unit of Anhui Province.

Tieyan Mountain House is located at the western end of Deng Family Mansion on Bailinban, Wuheng Township, Huaining County.

It is about 25 kilometers from Anqing City. In the 60th year of the Qianlong reign during the Qing Dynasty (1795), Deng Shiru built several thatched cottages and named his new residence “Tieyan Mountain House” after the iron inkstone gifted to him by Bi Yuan, the Viceroy of Lianghu. Hence the name “Tieyan Mountain House.” The main structure of the residence is built in a post-and-lintel style with a brick-and-wood frame, consisting of four courtyards. The first courtyard is the entrance hall, spanning three bays. Deng Chuanmi inscribed the lintel in clerical script with the name “Tieyan Mountain House,” and the wooden door couplet reads: “In warm waters, fish play by green reeds; by bright apricot blossoms, swallows return.” The second and third courtyards are both two-story pavilions, each five bays wide and two bays deep. The second courtyard’s main hall is called “Shouyi Hall,” spanning three bays, with side rooms partitioned by wooden boards serving as living quarters. The third courtyard is named “Yanyu Residence,” where the central bay serves as a passageway, and the side and end bays are all partitioned wooden rooms. The fourth courtyard is used as a storage room. To the west of the main building lies a study courtyard, which once included the “Qiusheng Pavilion” and “Yicui Tower,” with the study courtyard also functioning as a garden. The entire complex covers nearly 1,000 square meters. In 1924, Deng Jiaxian, an outstanding Chinese nuclear scientist and a key figure in China’s “Two Bombs” project—also the sixth-generation descendant of Deng Shiru—was born in the living quarters to the west of “Shouyi Hall.”