The Kexiu Ancestral Hall

The Kexiu Ancestral Hall

The Kexiu Ancestral Hall is a protected cultural heritage site of Meizhou City.

The Kexiu Ancestral Hall is located in Qiaotou Group, Dadi Village, Lanfang Town, Jiaoling County, Meizhou City, Guangdong Province. It was built in the 13th year of the Republic of China (1924). The structure faces southeast and is oriented from the northwest. It comprises a front courtyard, main hall, flower terrace, enclosed wing, and side rooms, laid out in a configuration of two halls, two stories, four side wings, and one enclosed wing, with one main entrance and five bays. The total width is 49.4 meters, the total depth is 60.3 meters, housing a total of 75 rooms, covering an area of approximately 2,979 square meters, with a floor space of about 2,742 square meters. The roof features hanging gables with gray tiles, walls made of rammed earth, wooden brackets, ink-painted floral motifs on the baseboards, and printed triad-earth flooring. The main gate is a single entry, with a flush-gable roof, a hipped gable, and a door frame made of bluestone slabs. Above the gate is inscribed “Kexiu Ancestral Hall,” flanked by couplets reading “Diligent and frugal; Cultivate virtue and refine character.” The lower hall is an open space, with stone foundations and wooden pillars supporting a double-sided, gold-lacquered wooden screen carved with patterns of figures and flowers. The left and right corridors between the lower and upper halls are symmetrical. The upper hall is one step higher than the lower hall and is built with stone foundations and wooden pillars, featuring a wooden screen that holds the ancestral tablets of the Tang family. The screen is adorned with painted patterns of figures and flowers. At the back of the main hall, there are two wells—one square and one round—on the left and right sides. The flower terrace is broad and flat, paved with pebbles arranged in patterns such as the Eight Trigrams. A semi-circular enclosed wing, consisting of a row of two-story structures, surrounds the main hall and side rooms. The second floor uses post-and-lintel wooden beams and wooden flooring. The left and right side rooms are symmetrically arranged, each with a private hall, divided into upper, middle, and lower corridors. Between the middle and upper corridors, screens with glazed floral windows are installed, and arched doorways are set on both sides. The building has an aesthetically pleasing form, a rational layout, and exquisitely carved wooden components, making it of significant value for the study of Hakka enclosed-wing house architectural culture in Jiaoling County. In January 2014, it was designated as a municipal-level cultural heritage site by the Meizhou Municipal People’s Government.

Source: Jiaoling County Museum

Dadi Village: Dadi Village in Jiaoling County, Meizhou City, administers 19 villager groups, with 810 registered households and a population of 2,655. The village has a total cultivated land area of 1,989.06 mu. The annual rainfall in the village is approximately 1,630 mm. Major cash crops include tobacco leaves and rice. The village’s distinctive economic income comes from pig farming and tobacco cultivation. In the previous year, the total rural economic income of the village was 8 million yuan. 1. Vigorously develop the pig farming industry, initially forming a certain scale; 2. Focus on developing rural tobacco planting to help increase villagers’ economic income. … More detailed information about Dadi Village++

Further Reading:

· Second Batch of Protected Cultural Heritage Sites of Meizhou City