Huang’s Ancestral Hall, also known as the Huang Clan’s Study Room, is a place for the Han Chinese to worship their ancestors or sages. Located at No. 36 Huancheng West Road, Huizhou City, Huiyang District, Guangdong Province, it is the ancestral temple of the Huang clan from Guishan County (present-day Huiyang City, Huidong County, Huiyang District, and parts of Bao’an District). Built in the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang Renyin year (1842), it was later converted into the Huang Clan’s Study Room.
The hall is a three-progress courtyard with three additional progress rooms on the left side connected by a small alley side door, covering a total construction area of 1000 square meters. The first progress has a width of five rooms and a depth of three rooms. On both sides of the main entrance, a bow-shaped stone beam is placed in front of the secondary rooms and the main room, with stone corner pieces on both sides of the beam, and stone lions on top of the beam, holding a dougong (a type of bracket system in Chinese architecture) with one bucket and three ascending arches. The granite main gate is tall and majestic, standing at 3.6 meters high and 2.05 meters wide. The gate’s plaque reads ‘Huang’s Study Room’ in regular script, engraved in intaglio, with each character measuring 50×60 centimeters. The couplets ‘Achievements in Good Governance First’ and ‘Family Tradition of Filial Piety and Friendship Unmatched’ are in running script, also engraved in intaglio, with each character measuring 25×40 centimeters. The calligraphy is elegant and smooth, possessing a high artistic value. A pair of stone door blocks are on both sides of the entrance, each measuring 63 centimeters in height and 54 centimeters in width. The corridor connecting the first and second progresses is composed of three parts, with a hard mountain style roof in the middle and two front and back rooms with a rolled shed style roof. This design not only deepens the depth of the front courtyard but also adds variety. The rolled shed corridor beams are adorned with eight-sided melon ridge and plum blossom dougong, which form a combined structure supporting the rafters, a carving that is exquisite and unique, reflecting local characteristics. The transverse decorations of the corridor rooms are rich and diverse. The entire building uses gray tiles, with green glazed tiles trimming the edges, giving it a solemn and simple appearance. The carvings inside the building are smooth, with the stone lions vividly lifelike and the wooden components elegant and refined. Many murals depicting ancient sages are preserved on the walls. The site is open all day, every day.
