LegendThe mountain in the rain
People say the best time to see the hill is in light rain, when the rocks darken, the gorge runs with water and the hill looks like the mountains in a painting.
Source: A saying among Suzhou garden lovers
The story
The ground has been a garden for a thousand years: a garden of the Wuyue (907–978) princes in the tenth century, the herb garden of the Song (960–1279) scholar Zhu Changwen, the house of the Ming grand secretary Shen Shixing. In the Qing (1644–1912) it passed through several families. Early in the nineteenth century the owner, Sun Jun, asked Ge Yuliang to build him a mountain.
Ge Yuliang built one hill of lake rock, about seven metres high, on less than half a mu of ground. In 1847 the Wang family made the place part of their clan estate and called it the Mountain Villa with Embracing Beauty. Today it lies inside the Suzhou Embroidery Research Institute, and you walk past embroiderers to reach it.
Part of Classical Gardens of Suzhou. Also there: Humble Administrator's Garden, Lingering Garden, Master of the Nets Garden, Canglang Pavilion, Lion Grove Garden, Garden of Cultivation, Couple's Retreat Garden, Retreat and Reflection Garden.
What is here
The garden is reached through the Suzhou Embroidery Research Institute and its museum. One small ticket covers it.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| The rock hill and pond | Main ticket |
| Halls and pavilions | Main ticket |
| Embroidery museum and workshops | Main ticket |
If you have one minute
In front of the hill
Look at the hill from the hall. It seems to be a range of mountains: a main peak in the south-east, a lesser one in the north-west, a ravine between them with a stream. Now walk in. A path climbs past cliffs, crosses a stone bridge over the gorge, and goes into a cave with a stone table and a window.
Ge Yuliang's secret was to join rocks the way a builder makes an arch, hooking each stone onto the next, so that caves could be roofed without beams and the joins hardly show. Chinese garden scholars of the twentieth century, Liu Dunzhen and Chen Congzhou, called it the best lake-rock hill in the country.
Things people often get wrong
"A small garden is a lesser garden." This one is small on purpose: a whole landscape in one courtyard.
"The rocks are natural." Every one was chosen, carried and set by hand.
People who stood here
We searched Chinese sources first for this list, then English ones.
- Zhu Changwen (Song scholar, 1039–1098)He made a garden here called the Garden of Joy, and wrote about it.
- Shen Shixing (Ming grand secretary, 1535–1614)He lived here when he retired from the head of the government.
- Ge Yuliang (rock master, 1764–1830)From Changzhou, he built rock hills for gardens across Jiangnan. This is the one that made his name last.
- Liu Dunzhen (architectural historian, 1897–1968)He surveyed the gardens of Suzhou in the 1950s and wrote the great book on them. He singled out this hill.
Go deeper: five stops round and through one hill
The garden takes half an hour if you hurry, an hour if you look. Go round the pond first, then through the hill.
1. The Hall with a Valley
The hall at the south looks straight at the hill across a strip of water. From here the hill is a painting.
2. The Asking Spring Pavilion
A pavilion on a little island in the pond, by the spring called Flying Snow. Water once fell here from the rocks.
3. Through the hill
Climb the path. On the way find the stone bridge over the gorge, the cave with the stone room, and a view down through a crack to the water. It feels like an hour's walk in the mountains, in ten minutes.
4. Half a Pool of Autumn Water, One Room of Mountain
A small pavilion behind the hill with a name from a Tang poem: half a pool of autumn water, one room of mountain. It describes the whole garden.
5. The Boat for Mending Autumn
A long waterside hall at the north, built like a boat. Look back at the hill from here: it is another painting, from the other side.
On the way out, stop at the embroidery workshops and the museum. Suzhou embroidery is so fine that a single silk thread is split into many.
The garden and the same years elsewhere
Ge Yuliang built the hill about 1807, the year Britain abolished its slave trade. The Wang family named the garden in 1847, the year Charlotte Brontë published Jane Eyre.