The Former Shen Family Courtyard in Shenfangqian

The Former Shen Family Courtyard in Shenfangqian

The Former Shen Family Courtyard in Shenfangqian is a cultural relic protection unit of Linyi City.

The Former Shen Family Courtyard in Shenfangqian is located in Shenfangqian Village, Lanling Town, Lanling County. Dating back to the Ming and Qing dynasties, it is classified as an ancient architectural structure.

This traditional courtyard house was originally built by the ancestors of the Shen family during the Ming Dynasty and was in use through the Qing Dynasty. It was originally a three-courtyard compound, but only the second courtyard remains today. The west courtyard faces south and has 15 rooms, covering an east-west span of 21 meters and a north-south span of 20.7 meters, with a total area of about 435 square meters. The main hall consists of three rooms with a corridor, supported by wooden pillars. It is 9 meters long, 4.7 meters wide, and about 5 meters high. There are two rooms on the east side, and wing rooms on both the east and west sides of the courtyard, with three rooms each, 3 meters wide and 11 meters long. The west courtyard of the second courtyard has a passageway gate tower that is 5 meters wide (north-south), 3 meters long (east-west), and 6 meters high. The roof eaves are decorated with blue tiles featuring "auspicious cloud" patterns, while the gable wall on the west side features an integrated design of "lotus and longevity character" patterns. The doorposts and stone drums on both sides of the gate are well-preserved. To the west of the gate tower are three southern rooms. The buildings in the west courtyard of the second courtyard are of brick-and-wood structure, with double-beam roof frameworks and mortise-and-tenon joints. The roof is of the flush-gable style, covered with interlocking and flat tiles, topped with blue tiles. The walls are built from blue bricks, giving the structure an elegant and classic appearance. Aside from the west wing room’s roof, which has been restored and covered with green grass, the rest of the buildings in the west courtyard of the second courtyard are relatively well-preserved. The west courtyard of the second courtyard is 20 meters wide and 12 meters deep. Only three eastern wing rooms remain in the east courtyard of the second courtyard, with the roof having been modified. To the north of the second courtyard, where the original third courtyard once stood, only three eastern wing rooms remain, also with modified roofs. This ancient courtyard is a residence with typical architectural style from the Ming Dynasty and holds significant value and importance for the study of local architectural styles and folk culture in Linyi during the Ming and Qing periods.

The Former Shen Family Courtyard in Shenfangqian is among the fourth batch of municipal-level cultural relic protection units.

Lanling Town: Located at the junction of two provinces, three cities, and four counties or districts, Lanling Town covers a total area of 136 square kilometers, governs 114 villages, and has a population of 136,000. It has 149 party branches and 2,929 party members, including 114 rural party branches with 2,340 members, 35 party branches of new social organizations and enterprises directly under the town with 589 members.

Lanling is rich in resources, with gypsum reserves of 1.66 billion tons and iron ore reserves of 1.6 billion tons. The wheat planting area is 126,000 mu, ranking first in the county, and the vegetable planting area is 42,000 mu. The Liyuan Vegetable Industrial Park is the largest green vegetable production base in the county. … More detailed information about Lanling Town++