Ancestral Hall of Family Chen, Luojiang

Luozhou Chen's Ancestral Hall was built in the Ming Dynasty and was originally a family temple. The ancestral hall was rebuilt in the 16th year of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (1677), rebuilt in the 5th year of Yongzheng (1727), and rebuilt with donations from Chen Ruolin in the 24th year of Jiaqing (1819). The temple sits east to west, with a wooden structure and two entrances, covering an area of more than 500 square meters. The first entry consists of a gatehouse, a pavilion and a patio. The gatehouse is an archway-style building, with a bucket-style wooden frame and a mountain roof. It is three rooms wide and two rooms deep. The second stage consists of pavilions, patios, and halls. The hall is three rooms wide and seven columns deep. It has a bucket-type reduced-column wooden frame. The beams and wooden columns are thick. The exterior is painted with black lacquer. Its overall structure is relatively complete and has strong local characteristics of Fuzhou. The plaque "Luojiang Chen's Ancestral Hall" written by Zuo Zongtang hangs on the gate of the ancestral hall. Li Hongzhang summarized it in 10 words on the couplet of Chen's Ancestral Hall: "The crown belt is now Luozhu, and the poetry and books are ancient Yingchuan". The hall is the "Fu Shou" plaque that Emperor Daoguang bestowed on Chen Ruolin's 70th birthday. Luojiang Chen's Ancestral Hall has three characteristics: one of them is many pairs of plaques, and there are more than 100 plaques, and most of them are inscribed by famous people and made by royal gifts. Such as Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang, Zhang Zhidong, Cheng Cheng and others wrote inscriptions, which add a lot of color to the ancestral hall. The second is a white wall with blue lacquer. On the walls on both sides, there are portraits of celebrities such as Chen Huai, the first jinshi of the Chen family in Luozhou. There are also many giant photos of famous contemporary Chen family figures, including Lieutenant General Chen Changjie of the Army, Lieutenant General Chen Qingjia of the Navy, and Lieutenant of Transportation Construction. Chen Ticheng, a professor at Fujian Normal University, Chen Daisun, an economist and a professor at Peking University, and Chen Biao, an academician of the Academy of Sciences, etc., all show that they are the residence of scholars and officials, and a famous family. Third, the light poles of the high-hanging lanterns in the main hall are placed on the outside under the main beam of the "Ziwei Luan Jia", which is different from other building structures.