He Garden (Jixiao Mountain Villa)
何园
The 'Foremost Garden of the Late Qing,' Jixiao Mountain Villa, with a 1,500-meter covered gallery, a blend of Chinese and Western pavilions, and the Pianshi Mountain Hall rockery attributed to Shitao. It is a distinctive late-Qing residential garden in Yangzhou.
He Garden, also known as Jixiao Mountain Villa, sits on Xuning Gate Street in the southeast of Yangzhou's old city. In the 9th year of the Guangxu reign (1883), He Zhidao, the Hubei Han-Huang-De circuit intendant, built it after he resigned from office. It covers 14,000 square meters and is a representative example of late-Qing Yangzhou gardens, praised as the Foremost Garden of the Late Qing. The garden has four parts: the East Garden, the West Garden, the residence and Pianshi Mountain Hall. The West Garden centers on a pond and is surrounded by a 1,500-meter two-level covered gallery that links all the pavilions. It is an early form of the overpass-style galleries found in Chinese gardens, and climbing it gives you a view over the whole garden. In the middle of the pond, the Water Heart Pavilion was an ancient opera stage with excellent acoustics, and TV productions such as Dream of the Red Chamber have been filmed here. The Yuxiu Tower is a two-story residence that blends Chinese and Western styles, with ironwork, louvered shutters and a French fireplace reflecting late-Qing life after the opening of the treaty ports. The boat hall in the East Garden has a pattern of cobblestones and tiles like waves, as if a boat were sailing on water. Pianshi Mountain Hall is a rockery built by the painter-monk Shitao in the late Ming and early Qing, considered a unique original of the human world. The rockery contains stone caves, and the pond shows a 'moon in the water' effect, created when sunlight passes through the caves and casts reflections. A visit takes about 1.5 hours. It is about 2 km from Ge Garden and can be reached by bike or bus. Admission is RMB 45 in peak season and RMB 30 in off-season. Getting there: take bus 19 or 61 to He Garden station, or walk 20 minutes from Dongguan Street. Notes: the covered gallery has many steps. The moon in the water at Pianshi Mountain Hall is most visible at certain times in the afternoon. You can extend your shopping to nearby Xuning Gate Street and Pishi Street.
Opening hours
07:30–17:30
Nearby sights
- Xiaopangu Garden
- Lu Family Salt Merchant Residence
- Former Residence of Zhu Ziqing
- Fuchun Teahouse
- Wang's Residence
- Tomb of Puhaddin
- Dongguan Street
- Pishi Street