Ancestral Hall of the Xie Clan

Ancestral Hall of the Xie Clan

The Ancestral Hall of the Xie Clan is a cultural relic protection unit of Chaozhou City.

The Ancestral Hall of the Xie Clan was built in the Renzi year of the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty (1552) by Xie Huai, the great-great-grandson of Xie Lin, an ancestor of the Xie family, and Xie Chengzhi, the sixth-generation descendant and Vice Instructor of Shunqing Prefecture. It has a history of over 400 years.

The front wall of the ancestral hall houses a stone stele from the seventh year of the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty inscribed with the “Record of the Ancestral Hall of the Xie Clan.” The front gate tower is built with a hanging-flower column and arch-supported purlin framework, the entrance hall features a papaya-raised-beam framework, and the main hall has a camel’s hump-raised-beam framework.

According to accounts from elderly clan members and verification of the stele, before the worship of Weng Zhongguang, the ancestral hall only enshrined three generations of the Xie family ancestors: Xie Lin, his son Xie Yu, and his grandson Xie Ji.

The ancestral hall faces southeast and is oriented northwest, featuring a two-courtyard layout with a width of 12.15 meters and a depth of 27.9 meters, covering a total area of 338 square meters.

The ancestral hall is divided into three sections: the front hall, the courtyard, and the main hall. The front wall of the ancestral hall contains a stone stele from the seventh year of the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty inscribed with the “Record of the Ancestral Hall of the Xie Clan.”