Guiling Academy

Guiling Academy

Guiling Academy is a Guangdong Provincial Cultural Heritage Site.

Guiling Academy is located within Meizhou High School in Chengjiao Village, Jiaocheng Town, Jiaoling County, Meizhou City, Guangdong Province. According to the *Jiaoling County Annals* (first edition, October 1992), it was built in the 25th year of the Kangxi reign during the Qing Dynasty (1686). It was renovated during the Guangxu reign and restored to its original appearance in 2005. In 1904, Qiu Fengjia founded the Zhenping Elementary Teachers' Training Institute here, which was renamed Meizhou High School in 1914. The building faces south and features a three-story, palace-style layout with a single row of seven bays. It has a total width of 25.6 meters, a depth of 17.3 meters, 12 rooms, and covers an area of approximately 443 square meters, with a building footprint of about 270 square meters and a floor area of around 630 square meters. It has a double-eaved hip-and-gable roof with gray tiles, rammed earth walls, and ink-wash-painted lower wall sections. The front has seven steps leading up to the entrance, which features a porch supported by square and round granite columns. The central section has a rolled shed roof with exquisite bracket sets and a post-and-lintel wooden frame. There are octagonal doors on both sides. The first floor’s central bay is an open hall with circular stone plinths and wooden columns supporting a carved screen, and small side doors. The second floor has a granite staircase, wooden flooring, a rammed earth surface, square wooden columns, a post-and-lintel frame, and an outer corridor in a square-loop design with vase-shaped railings. There are carved wooden screens at the front and back. The third floor has a wooden staircase, wooden flooring with a rammed earth surface, square columns supporting a post-and-lintel frame, an outer corridor in a square-loop design, a wooden railing on the front façade with a “Guiling Academy” wooden plaque hanging from it, and lime-plastered railings on the other three sides. There are also carved wooden screens at the front and back. Guiling Academy was historically the highest educational institution in Zhenping County (now Jiaoling County) and plays an important role in the study and understanding of the region’s educational history. It was designated as a county-level cultural heritage site by the Jiaoling County Government in 1985, a municipal-level site by the Meizhou Municipal Government in January 2014, and a provincial-level site by the Guangdong Provincial Government in December 2015.

Chengjiao Village: Chengjiao Village, Jiaoling, Meizhou City, is located in Chengjiao Village, Jiaocheng Town, Jiaoling County, Meizhou City, Guangdong Province. The village has 19 villager groups, with 716 registered households and a population of 2,303. The total area of the village is 3.048 square kilometers, and the cultivated land area is 18.55 mu. The average annual temperature is 21.3 degrees Celsius, with an annual rainfall of about 1,901 millimeters, featuring a subtropical maritime monsoon climate. The main cash crops are rice, fruit trees, and vegetables. The village's special economic income is 4.9 million yuan, and the previous year’s total rural economic income was 14.7 million yuan. …… More details about Chengjiao Village++

Further Reading:

· Eighth Batch of Guangdong Provincial Cultural Heritage Sites

· Second Batch of Meizhou Municipal Cultural Heritage Sites