Jiexiazhuang Manor 接霞庄

About Jiexiazhuang Manor

The settlement was originally called Zhaojiazhuang, the Zhao family manor. Its present name records the wooded setting and the rosy mist that often gathered over it, read locally as an auspicious sign. According to the lineage genealogy the Zhao of Nanmen Village descend from Zhao Kuangmei, Prince of Wei and younger brother of Zhao Kuangyin, the founding emperor of the Song. The manor was the estate of a wealthy branch of that family and is about two hundred years old.

Within the enclosure the historic fabric has been kept as a group rather than as isolated monuments: pavilions and garden buildings, small bridges over water, and stone-paved lanes, with a moat around the old manor. Jiexiazhuang is one of four places named in the core protection zone of the conservation plan for Doumen, a designated Chinese historic and cultural town, alongside Doumen Old Street, Nanmen Village and Yuxiu Village; that core zone covers about 5.97 hectares within a protected area of some 173.64 hectares. The same plan gives particular weight to the T-shaped group of arcade houses that survives from the town's period as a trading market at the southern end of the Pearl River Delta.

What to look for

• The moat that still rings the old Zhao family manor
• The stone-paved lanes and the pavilions and garden buildings inside the enclosure
• The small bridges and watercourses that run through the settlement
• The oyster-shell wall of the Luyitang ancestral hall in the surrounding Nanmen Village, more than six hundred years old
• The T-shaped arcade-house group of Doumen Old Street, the other component of the town's core protection zone

Location & getting there

Getting to Jiexiazhuang Manor

Identify the main visitor approach and any separately managed houses, museums or performances. Ask before entering residential spaces or photographing residents.

• Search for 接霞庄 with 珠海市 and 斗门区.