Lingering Garden

The story

In 1593, in the reign of the Wanli emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the official Xu Taishi was dismissed and came home to Suzhou. Outside the Chang Gate he built himself the East Garden, with a rock wall made by the master Zhou Shichen and five great rocks brought from his father-in-law's house. His West Garden across the road later became a Buddhist temple, which is still there.

Two hundred years later Liu Shu, another official tired of office, rebuilt the ruin as Hanbi Villa, and people called it Liu's Garden. When Sheng Kang bought it in 1873 he kept the sound and changed the character: Liu, "to linger". The scholar Yu Yue called it the finest garden in the Wu country.

Part of Classical Gardens of Suzhou. Also there: Humble Administrator's Garden, Master of the Nets Garden, Canglang Pavilion, Lion Grove Garden, Mountain Villa with Embracing Beauty, Garden of Cultivation, Couple's Retreat Garden, Retreat and Reflection Garden.

What is here

One ticket covers all four parts. The West Garden Temple across the road was Xu Taishi's other garden and has its own ticket.

If you have one minute

In the dark entrance corridor

You came in through a long, narrow passage between high walls, turning and dim, more than fifty metres of it. It is meant to make you small. At the end, a few windows show green, and then the garden opens: water, a hill, pavilions, light. Garden makers call this holding back first, then letting go.

The garden has four parts. The central part, with its pond and hill, is the oldest. The east is a maze of halls and courtyards, the west a hill of maples, the north a little farm. Covered corridors, about seven hundred metres of them, join everything, so that you can walk the whole garden in the rain.

Set into the corridor walls are more than three hundred stone tablets carved with the calligraphy of famous hands, known as the Lingering Garden models. Stop at one and trace a character with your eyes.

Things people often get wrong

"Lingering Garden is a translation of an old name." The old name was Liu's Garden, after an owner. The new owner wanted his own name on it but kept the sound: liu, to stay.

"The Cloud-Capped Peak came from the Song (960–1279) emperor's rock collection." That is the story. It cannot be proved.

"It is a small garden." At about 2.3 hectares it is the second largest of the nine, after the Humble Administrator's Garden. It feels small because it is cut into so many rooms.

People who stood here

We searched Chinese sources first for this list, then English ones.

• Xu Taishi (Ming official, builder of the East Garden)He had rebuilt a palace of the empress dowager in Beijing. Dismissed from office, he made the East Garden and gave his West Garden to the Buddhists.
• Zhou Shichen (rock master, late Ming)He piled the rock screen behind Xu's hall, some three zhang high and twenty wide, "like a landscape painting on a long scroll".
• Liu Shu (Qing (1644–1912) official and collector of rocks)He rebuilt the garden in 1794–1798, collected twelve fine rocks and called himself "the man who whistles at twelve peaks". In 1823 the garden was opened to visitors.
• Wang Xuehao (painter, 1754–1832)In 1802 he painted Liu Shu's twelve rocks one by one. The album is in the Shanghai Museum.
• Sheng Kang (Qing official from Changzhou)He bought the ruin in 1873, finished rebuilding in 1876 and named it the Lingering Garden. His son Sheng Xuanhuai founded China's first modern bank and ran its telegraphs and railways.
• Yu Yue (scholar, 1821–1907)He wrote the record of the garden for Sheng Kang. His own small garden, the Qu Yuan, is a short walk across the old city.

Go deeper: seven stops through four gardens

After the entrance corridor, go round the central pond clockwise, then east to the Cloud-Capped Peak, then west to the hill. Allow ninety minutes.

1. Old Trees with Interlocking Branches

At the end of the entrance corridor is a tiny court with one old tree, a flower bed and a wall. Look through the windows to the left: each frames a different scrap of the garden beyond.

2. The central pond and Little Penglai

Round the pond stand the Hanbi Mountain House, named from a line of Zhu Xi about water holding the green, and the Pellucid Tower that looks like a moored boat. Opposite, a hill of yellow stone, the oldest work in the garden, climbs to a pavilion.

In the pond lies Little Penglai, an island named after the islands of the immortals, crossed by a zigzag bridge under wisteria.

The Haopu Pavilion is named after the river where the philosopher Zhuangzi watched fish and said he knew they were happy. Watch the fish here. Are they happy?

3. The Celestial Hall of Five Peaks

The largest hall in any Suzhou garden, built of nanmu wood. Its name comes from a line of Li Bai about the five old peaks of Mount Lu. In front, a rockery stands for those mountains.

The hall is divided front and back, for receiving guests and for the family. The furniture is set as it was, in strict pairs.

4. The Small Court of the Stone Forest

Behind the hall is a nest of tiny courtyards, each holding one or two rocks and a plant, seen through windows from the rooms around. This was the study, where the owner sat with his stones.

5. The Cloud-Capped Peak

A single lake rock about 6.5 metres tall, with two smaller peaks beside it. It is often counted among the four famous rocks of Jiangnan, and is the tallest lake rock in the Suzhou gardens.

Old judges of rock asked four things: is it thin, wrinkled, full of holes, open so that light passes through? Find a hole that shows you the sky.

The small pond in front is there to catch its reflection. A hall, a tower and a pavilion were built round it only to look at this stone.

6. The west hill and the Lively Place

The west is wild on purpose: an earth hill covered in maples, red in November, with a stream running below to a waterside room called the Lively Place.

The north part is a small farm of bamboo, grapes and peach trees, and a garden of penjing.

7. Music in the garden: Dongshan Sizhu

The board over a gate in the east reads "silk and bamboo of the eastern mountain", that is, music. In some rooms of the garden you can hear Suzhou pingtan storytelling or Jiangnan silk-and-bamboo music played for visitors.

The Lingering Garden was also a set for the 1987 television Dream of the Red Chamber.

Why it survived

In the war of 1860 the garden was laid waste. In the war years of the 1930s and 40s soldiers were quartered here and horses kept in the halls, and by 1949 it was a ruin again. It was repaired and reopened in 1954.

Xu Taishi built in 1593; that year London's theatres were closed by plague, and Shakespeare published his first poem.