Shide Chuanfang Archway

Shide Chuanfang Archway

The Shide Chuanfang Archway is a cultural relic protection unit of Nanchang City.

Era: Ming Dynasty

Type: Ancient Architecture

Address: Wengmen Village, Wen'gang Town, Jinxian County, Jiangxi Province

Introduction:

The Shide Chuanfang Archway is a Ming Dynasty structure, featuring a three-bay, four-pillar, triple-eave style memorial archway. It stands 7.3 meters tall and spans 8.77 meters wide. The central bay features a semi-circular arched gateway built from red sandstone, standing 2.9 meters high and 0.79 meters deep (in thickness), with the upper part of the archway narrowing forward by two tiers to a thickness of 0.4 meters. The pillars, beams, and carvings on the archway—including figures, animals, flowers, and geometric patterns—are all original works from the late Ming Dynasty. The triple eaves were renovated in the late Qing Dynasty or during the Republic of China period. The archway bears the four large characters “世德传芳” (Virtue Passed Down Through Generations) in traditional regular script, carved in relief and written from right to left. On the stone beam above, there are additionally four vertical characters “泽茹耕云” in traditional Wei stele script. On the lower part of the left and right walls are inscribed the single traditional regular script characters “动” (Action) and “实” (Substance), respectively.

The triple tiled eaves of the Shide Chuanfang Archway were renovated from the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China period, but the main structure consists of well-preserved late Ming components, making it a valuable physical resource for the study of Ming Dynasty archway architecture.

Wen'gang Town: Located on the Gan-Fu Plain in Jinxian County, Jiangxi Province, Wen'gang Town is widely known as the “Capital of Writing Brushes in China” and is famed as a hometown of brush-making. It lies east of National Highway 316 and the Beijing-Fuzhou Expressway, north of the Wenhou Expressway, and west alongside the flowing Fu River. It is also the birthplace of Yan Shu, a famous statesman and poet of the Northern Song Dynasty. The town administers 16 village committees and 5 neighborhood committees, covering a total area of 54.53 square kilometers (including an urban area of 3.8 square kilometers), with 26,000 mu of arable land and a population of 70,000, of which 30,000 reside in the urban area—making it one of the more urbanized towns in the region.

Since the reform and opening up, … Wen'gang Town detailed information++