Guling Scenic Area 鼓岭

About Guling Scenic Area

Guling Scenic Area (鼓岭) is a hill resort for escaping the summer heat in Huanxi Town (宦溪镇), Jin'an District (晋安区), Fuzhou (福州), on the north side of Mount Gu (鼓山) and about 13 km from the city. In English it is also spelled Kuliang.

The hills stand more than 800 m high, reaching 998 m at the top, and summer highs stay at or below 30°C. From the 19th century this drew Westerners who could not bear Fuzhou's summer heat. In 1886, the 12th year of the Guangxu reign, the American missionary S. F. Woodin built the first villa, in Yixia Village (宜夏村).

By 1935 Guling had over 300 summer villas in a mix of styles, plus churches, a hospital, tennis courts, a swimming pool and the International Club (万国公益社). More than 3,000 summer visitors came each day, and Chinese officials and wealthy families by then outnumbered the foreigners. Seven streets, among them Pangxieling (螃蟹岭) and Liangcuoli (梁厝里), carried house numbers 1 to 500, and in summer shops opened alongside a seasonal post office and a police station. The writer Yu Dafu (郁达夫) came for the cool air in the 1930s. Guling was counted among the well-known retreats of the time, together with Guling (牯岭) in Jiangxi, Henan's Jigong Mountain (鸡公山) and Zhejiang's Mount Mogan (莫干山).

Because the houses were built for summer stays, most were small single-storey stone cottages, and many have fallen to ruin. Apart from the International Club, only a few remain whole; in 1995 Jin'an District listed the site in its fourth batch of protected cultural relics. Since redevelopment began in the 1980s, more than 70 villas have been added, and Liushanwang Park (柳杉王公园, "King Cryptomeria Park") has been laid out. On Zhugangding (柱岗顶) a late-Qing building once housed E. C. Jones and R. Scott, president and dean of Fujian Christian University (福建协和大学); Watchman Nee (倪柝声) bought it in 1944 as a mission base. Restored in 2013, it now holds an exhibition on Milton Gardner (密尔顿·加德纳), the central figure of the "Guling story". In 2001 local Christians built a Protestant church at Houpulou (后浦楼) in Yixia Village with the stone walls and tall windows of the old foreign villas.

What to look for

• The International Club (万国公益社), one of the resort's public buildings in 1935 and one of the few surviving intact
• Surviving stone summer cottages and villa ruins from the foreign settlement
• The Gardner exhibition (加德纳展示馆) on Zhugangding, in a late-Qing building once used by Watchman Nee
• The 2001 Protestant church at Houpulou in Yixia Village, built in the old villa style
• Liushanwang Park (柳杉王公园)
• Yixia Village (宜夏村), where the first villa went up in 1886

Location & getting there

Getting to Guling Scenic Area

• Search for 鼓岭 with 福州市 and 晋安区.