The Ancestral Hall of the Zhang Clan in Taihe

The Ancestral Hall of the Zhang Clan in Taihe

The Ancestral Hall of the Zhang Clan in Taihe is a cultural heritage site protected at the provincial level in Anhui Province.

The Ancestral Hall of the Zhang Clan in Taihe is located in Taihe Zhang Natural Village, Heping Village, Meijie Town, Guichi District, Chizhou City, Anhui Province.

The hall faces south and is built along a north-south central axis. It has three courtyards and features a post-and-lintel style of brick-and-wood construction, with a rectangular floor plan. Originally built during the Ming Dynasty's Jiajing era, it underwent major renovations in the Qing Dynasty. The structure extends 43 meters in depth, is 12.6 meters wide, and stands 9.12 meters tall, covering an area of 541 square meters. The overall layout of the ancestral hall includes an entrance hall, an open courtyard, a middle hall, a patio, and the ancestral worship hall. On either side of the entrance hall are wing rooms, while the rear ancestral worship hall has a one- or two-story structure. A single staircase on each side of the first floor leads directly upstairs, where the second floor houses ancestral tablets from various generations. The interior wooden structure of the hall remains largely intact. Large and small beams, brackets, flat arches, lattice windows, and more are all adorned with carved patterns. The foundation stones are made of bluestone, shaped with round, bulging bellies, and come in circular, hexagonal, octagonal, and square forms. The roof is of the flush-gable style, with single-slope roofs on either side of the patio, covered with grayish-blue tiles. The surrounding walls are built upright without load-bearing function. The floor is compacted earth mixed with lime and glutinous rice juice. The founding ancestor of the Zhang clan in Guichi is regarded as Zhang Wenyan, the grandson of Zhang Zhijun from Langya, Fujian, who lived during the Tang Dynasty. The family migrated to Guichi in the early Yuan Dynasty, and by the mid-Qing Dynasty, the Zhangs had grown prosperous, becoming one of the four major surnames in Guichi — Du, Jiang, Li, and Zhang. The wooden framework of the ancestral hall is well-preserved, and the two-story ancestral worship hall is unique among surviving ancestral halls in the region. The hall now serves as a venue for Nuo opera performances by the clan. Its preservation provides extremely valuable material for the study of ancient architectural history and local culture, holding significant archaeological value. In 2004, it was designated as a county-level cultural heritage site.

Protected Area: The entrance gate of the ancestral hall extends 10 meters southward, and the protection zone extends 5 meters beyond the foundation walls on the east, west, and north sides.

Construction Control Zone: Extending 5 meters outward from the protected area on the east, west, and north sides, and aligned with the protected area to the south.

Meijie Town: The predecessor of Meijie Town was Taopo Township. Long ago, the area below Taopo was entirely sloping land planted with peach trees. Ancient people composed the couplet “Peach blossoms bloom in March, slopes stretch for ten miles,” and later generations thus named the place “Taopo.” In the early years after liberation, it was established as a township. In 1958, Taopo Commune was formed; in 1968, it merged with Jiefang Commune; in 1971, it was re-divided into Taopo and Jiefang communes; in 1984, during institutional reform, it became Taopo Township; and in 1992, during the district and township consolidation, Taopo Township was abolished, and Meijie Village from Liujie Township was incorporated to establish Meijie Town. The town government is located at the former Meijie District Office — Pan... More details about Meijie Town++