Chengkan Village

Located about 40km to the north of Huangshan City in Anhui Province, Chengkan Village is described as the "Town of China's Old Buildings". It has over 150 ancient residences from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. These age-old residences together with the surrounding mountains form a giant Chinese Taichi Bagua pattern. Thus, Chengkan Village is also well-known as Bagua Village.

Among all these old residences, Baolun Hall in the Luo Dongshu's Ancestral Temple is a representative collection of typical Huizhou style architecture. Built during the Jiaqing's reign in Qing Dynasty, the Ancestral Temple has an area of 5 mu (1/3 hectare). Baolun Hall inside the temple was well-designed and constructed with extreme attention to the details. Through the first entrance, visitors will reach Tianjing, which is a square dooryard with rooms on each side designed for lighting and draught. Then you will enter a great hall, where four vermilion posts support the timber frame. Further across a yard, there is the main hall, also known as Baolun Hall.

The design of this timber frame hall is delicate and unique. Exquisite engravings of flowers and geometric patterns on the bluestone parapets and creative colored paintings on the beams, lintels and doorframe lure various visitors from home and abroad. The colors remain bright and fresh throughout the ages. A pair of wooden staircases ascend to the second floor, from where visitors can have a perspective of the Mount Huangshan through the finely engraved casements.

The residential houses in Chengkan Village are of high value in the field of China's folk architecture. As a result, Chengkan has been designated as a provincial preservation.