Ancient Hucun Village

Ancient Hucun Village

Ancient Hucun Village is located 18 kilometers east of Jixi County in southern Anhui. It is an ancient settlement with "lion and elephant gate guardians" and a garden-framed entrance. Here, there is an ancestral hall that worships tens of thousands of descendants, a thousand-year-old tomb honoring ancestors, and genealogical records that span centuries. It lies along the essential route of the ancient Huizhou-Hangzhou Path, where one can still find thousand-year-old trees, tombs from the Song Dynasty, ancient bridges, and pavilions, as well as traditional residences, ancient archway clusters, and ancestral halls. The village features a Ming Dynasty water street, an ingeniously terraced complex of historic architecture built along the natural contours of the land. Nestled against the hills and stretching out in a winding fashion, it resembles a three-dimensional landscape painting. Embodying the full essence of Huizhou’s ancient villages, experts have called it a “living fossil of ancient Huizhou culture.”

At the western end of the village stands the magnificent ancestral hall of the Zhang family, which has been restored to its former glory. Inside the hall is a Ming Dynasty coiled dragon incense pavilion, whose pillars are carved with six dragons poised as if ready to take flight—representing the pinnacle of Huizhou woodcarving and hailed as a masterpiece of the craft.

At the southern end of the village stream lies a lane of ornamental gateways, where the door hoods of the connected residences are all decorated with exquisitely crafted brick carvings in diverse styles. Each of these gateways is a delicate piece of folk art, often leaving onlookers in awe. These finely carved gateways draw inspiration from a wide range of themes, including folk customs, mythological legends, and theatrical stories. They are considered among the finest examples of brick carving, fully showcasing the profound cultural richness of gateway art in Huizhou’s ancient architecture.

The village still preserves over a hundred traditional residences from past eras. These buildings all feature fundamental characteristics of Huizhou-style architecture, such as timber-and-brick structures, three rooms with two side wings, central courtyards, whitewashed walls with black tiles, and horse-head-shaped gables. However, their structural layouts vary: some are single-entry, others have front and rear sections, and some include front and rear halls. For example, there is a group of houses designed along a winding path that connects more than ten rooms together. The winding corridor links the homes, creating a maze-like effect. Stepping through the main gate, visitors encounter dozens of stone steps, and inside the homes, there are natural wells that never dry up in droughts nor overflow during heavy rains. No wonder experts say the village is truly a museum of Huizhou architecture.

To the north of the village lies an ancient tomb. According to historical records, this tomb belongs to the ancestors of the current President of China. The tomb is situated at the head of the Dragon-Shaped Xu Mountain Range, facing the 1,000-meter-high Qigu Mountain. Atop the tomb grows a thousand-year-old bitter oak tree. Though one side of the tree trunk bears scorch marks from a lightning strike, the village has fewer than a thousand residents, yet it is home to over twenty centenarians who remain vigorous and some even capable of working in the fields.

The village also boasts a rich variety of folk entertainment activities. It preserves the earliest stage scene-lifting setup in southern Anhui, as well as the “Swing and Tower Stage” performance, renowned as a unique folk art of the Jiangnan region.