Xinglong Street Courtyard

Xinglong Street Courtyard

Xinglong Street Courtyard is a cultural relic protection unit of Chongqing Municipality.

Xinglong Street Courtyard is located within Shuangjiang Town Middle School at No. 71 Yinlong Road, Shuangjiang Ancient Town. Originally built in the 21st year of the Guangxu reign during the Qing Dynasty (1895), it was the residence of Yang Zifeng, a wealthy merchant in Shuangjiang before liberation. After liberation, it was taken over as military property and housed an instructional regiment of a certain army unit. In 1993, it was returned to local government and repurposed as the site of Shuangjiang Town Middle School. On December 31, 2006, the Tongnan County Government announced it as one of the first batch of cultural relic protection units in Tongnan County.

The Qing Dynasty-era Xinglong Street Courtyard is an ancient building with a single-eave, post-and-lintel, and raised-beam structure, featuring a suspended gable roof and brick-wood construction. It faces south with its back to the north, laid out in a north-south vertical rectangular, multi-courtyard compound. It lies against Yinlong Mountain to the north and faces the Jinlong Mountain range to the south, with the trickling Houxi Stream flowing past from the west. The front hall borders Xinglong Street, spanning nine bays with a width of 40.9 meters, and consists of four courtyards with a total depth of 70.9 meters. Each courtyard has a central patio and surrounding corridors. There are 42 rooms, halls, and chambers of various sizes, 34 main doors, and over 170 carved lattice windows. The building covers a floor area of more than 2,899.81 square meters. The front of the residence opens onto a courtyard, while the rear is designed as a garden, covering a total area of 3,333 square meters.

The courtyard features a horizontal layout of four main buildings connected with side wings on both sides, and deep cross-courtyards that together form a complex, multi-courtyard compound. The terrain slopes from front to back, following the mountain contour with a well-arranged, terraced design. Most roofs are fitted with ceiling panels, the passageways are paved with stone slabs underground, and the main halls and rooms have wooden flooring. The woodwork is uniformly coated in black lacquer. The courtyards are deep and serene, and the entire compound is grand in scale. The various sections of the courtyard are interconnected layer by layer, with most rooms symmetrically arranged and accessible through linked pathways. When the main gate is open, the depth of the courtyard is visible; when closed, each level forms a compact and self-contained small courtyard. The compound covers a large area, contains numerous well-constructed buildings, and uses refined materials with exquisite ornamentation. The doors, windows, lattice panels, hanging columns, diagonal braces, and roof ridges are all intricately carved with fine craftsmanship and remain fully preserved without any damage. The floral window and lattice designs are particularly delicate, diverse, and exquisitely crafted. As one of the better-preserved and larger-scale Qing Dynasty residential courtyards in Chongqing, it is extremely rare throughout the region and holds significant scientific, artistic, and historical value. It was designated as a cultural relic protection unit of Chongqing Municipality in 2010.