What ancient villages are there in Mentougou District?

Jieshi Village

Jieshi Village is located in the deep mountains in the west of Yanchi Town, Mentougou District. The village area is 6.96 square kilometers. The village was built no later than the Jin Dynasty.

Originally called "Sancha Village", it was named "Jieshi Village" because there are many huge rocks in the village, which look like stone tablets.

The villages are distributed in an east-west strip along the canyon, close to the mountains and streams. The two ancient locust trees in the street have strong branches and lush leaves, which are full of charm.

The courtyards are mainly three-sided courtyards and four-sided courtyards. The house buildings are basically in the form of hard hills and clear water ridges. The brick carvings are exquisite, the doors and windows are decorated in various ways, and the green bricks in the courtyard are laid on the ground, which preserves the architectural legacy of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

There are many ancient wells in the village, and inscriptions written in Chinese ink can be seen everywhere, permeating a strong cultural heritage.

There are cultural relics such as Guandi Temple, Longwang Temple and Shengquan Temple Stele in the village. Among them, the Bodhisattva Cave is naturally formed and is very unique.

Jieshi Ancient Village is home to the largest number of ancient dwellings in the town, including 14 second courtyards, 27 third courtyards, and 18 quadrangle courtyards.

All types of courtyards have obvious characteristics of ancient courtyards and have different styles.

On the basis of retaining the original appearance of history, these buildings also leave traces of modern history.

Propaganda slogans and murals from different historical periods such as the Anti-Japanese War and post-liberation can still be clearly seen on many walls in the village.

There are as many as 72 ancient wells in Jieshi Village, all of which have a strong primitive style, and many of them are accompanied by a mythical story.

The well water is sweet, clear and pleasant.

According to the appraisal by relevant departments, the well water in the village is rich in various minerals and fully meets drinking standards.

In December 2007, Jieshi Village was identified as the “No. 1 Jingyang Village in West Beijing” by the China Urban Construction Research Institute.

In September 2005, Jieshi Village was included in the fifth batch of district-level cultural relics protection units in Mentougou District.

Housangyu Village

Housangyu Village is a village where the whole village believes in Catholicism.

Housangyu Church (Sacred Heart of Jesus Church) of the Catholic Diocese of Beijing is a large and historic church located in Mentougou District, southwest of Beijing.

Housangyu Village is also a relatively famous Catholic village in the Diocese of Beijing.

It is said that as early as the Yuan Dynasty, after Catholicism was spread to Beijing with the Mongolian army, foreign missionaries came here to practice medicine and preach. At that time, a private house was used as a place of prayer.

By the end of the Yuan Dynasty, in the second year of Yuantong (1334), a church was built in Housangyu Village, named "Sacred Heart of Jesus Church". The number of parishioners had grown to more than 100, and it belonged to the Catholic Diocese of Beijing.

In the second church restored by Father Li, there is a pair of stone lion dogs, one male and one male. Among them, the female lion dog is engraved with the words "The house is auspicious and the forest is righteous" (the stone lion dogs are now in the Cultural Relics Bureau) , is for witness.

In the 13th year of Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty (1534), the church was renovated and expanded to five rooms. There is a plaque above the door with the inscription "The True Source of All Things" and the subtitle "Built in the 13th year of Jiajing reign".

There is this Christian church in the mountains, and the people are simple and honest, and the public security in the village is very good, which benefits from the spiritual cultivation of the villagers.

Lingshui Village

Lingshui Village is an ancient mountain village with a history of thousands of years on the ancient post road west of Beijing. It was already quite large in the Liao Dynasty at the latest.

The economy was quite developed at that time, with more than a dozen shops, eight of which were the most famous, known as the "Eight Great Halls".

The residents of Lingshui are mainly Liu and Tan.

Viewed from Nanling in the south of the village, the village looks like a turtle, and the turtle is one of the "four spirits" and a symbol of good luck and longevity. In the past, there were 36 stone mills and 72 wells in the village. Well, great people.

This is probably the origin of the village’s name.

Since the imperial examination system became popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, 22 candidates, 2 Jinshi, and dozens of principals of primary and secondary schools have been produced in the past few hundred years. It is known as the "Juren Village in Lingshui, West Beijing".

The local folk culture of this village is very rich. There is the "Autumn Porridge Festival" to commemorate Liu Maoheng's charity and the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first lunar month. It is also known as the Dongling Stone Man, Lingquan Ginkgo, and Beishan Cui. The eight scenic spots of Lingshui include Baibai, the north view of the south hall, lotus on the west mountain, Juren's house, and Piaoyu Villa. There are two thousand-year-old trees named "Baibaoyu" and "Baibaomulberry" that are called "rare and rare trees in the world" by ancient tree experts. There are also natural and cultural tourism resources such as the Cypress Parasitic Tree, the Three Forbidden Monuments erected by ancient villagers to protect water sources and the ecological environment, and the "Gentleman Does Not Dispute" advocating modesty, tolerance and other traditional Chinese virtues.

Yangjiayu

Yangjiayu Village is located in the deep mountains in the southeast of Zhaitang Town. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides. The village area is 7.09 square kilometers. The overall shape of the settlement is like a scorpion.

According to a broken stele from the Ming Dynasty, the village was founded in the Liao Dynasty. It was originally a tribe with the surname Yang. It was most prosperous at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, when the population was only a hundred households.

Yangjiayu has a small population, but it has gathered many heritages such as ancient Taoist culture, clan culture, Taoist culture and architectural culture. It can be called a masterpiece among the original ecological ancient mountain villages.

The people of Yangjiayu are simple, diligent and kind-hearted. Since ancient times, they have respected Confucianism and Taoism, so they are known as the "Village of Farming and Reading", "Longevity Village", "Shunu Village" and "Ming and Qing Ancient Architecture Village" ” and many other good reputations.

Wei Zishui

Follow National Highway 109, follow the Yongding River Valley, enter Yanchi Ancient Town, turn right at the Qinyukou Checkpoint for 6 kilometers, and arrive at the silence deep in the Taihang Mountains in western Beijing The ancient village of Ming and Qing Dynasties - Weizishui.

This ancient village, which is comparable to "Cuandixia" and has the same roots, was originally named "Weizishui". It is said that it was named because there was a large ditch running east-west in the village, with water flowing all year round and lush reeds. It was called "reed water"; now that the ditch has dried up and the reeds are gone, the name of the village has evolved into "weizishui" in people's popular customs.

The residences of Weizishui Village are distributed in the mountain basins in the Jiutiao Valley. There are 46 courtyard houses of the Ming and Qing Dynasties built on the mountains in the valley basins.

Among them, 5 are basically intact.

These courtyards relatively intactly retain the simple and heavy architectural style, and more intuitively reflect the rural appearance at that time.

Weizishui Village has a history of more than 600 years (the earliest date is 1592, the 20th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty). When you come here and see a male villager, you don’t need to ask his surname, just ask him his name. Hundreds of villagers from the same clan all have the same surname, and they are all relatives of the same clan.

The ancestors are said to have come from under the big locust tree in Hongdong, Shanxi.

This is the same origin as Cuandixia, the famous ancient village of Zhaitang in western Jingxi. They can be said to have the same roots! Also due to its long-term isolation from the outside world, the folk customs here are simple, and it is said that no one picks up lost things on the road.

Cuandixia Village

Chuandixia Village, whose real name is Cuandixia.

It got its name because it was located below the "Cuuli Ankou" (locally called Cuantou) in the Ming Dynasty.

It is located in the middle of the narrow valley northwest of Zhaitang in the west of Beijing. It belonged to the eighth district of Wanping County before liberation and is now under the jurisdiction of Zhaitang Town.

It is 90 kilometers away from Beijing, 650 meters above sea level, with a village area of ??5.3 square kilometers, in the Qingshui River Basin, with a temperate monsoon climate, an annual average temperature of 10.1°C, and good natural vegetation, suitable for raising sheep and bees.

The village currently has a population of 29 households with 70 people, a land of 280 acres, 74 courtyards, and 689 houses.

Most of them are Siheyuan and Sanheyuan built in the late Qing Dynasty (a small number were built in the Republic of China).

It is built according to the mountain, according to the situation, and is staggered at different heights. With the dragon head at the back of the village as the center and the north-south axis as the axis, it is spread out in a fan shape on both sides.

The upper part of the village and the lower part of the village are separated by a large arc-shaped wall 200 meters long and 20 meters high at the highest point. The front of the village is surrounded by a 170-meter long arc-shaped wall, which makes the whole village maintain its shape and spirit. The three channels are used to go up and down, and they have the function of preventing floods and bandits.