Guanyin Temple at Baimagou

Period: Yuan Dynasty Location: Baimagou Village, Jincheng Township, 15 kilometres southeast of Bo'ai County

The founding date of Guanyin Temple at Baimagou cannot be traced precisely. According to the Record of Renovating Buddha Statues in Guanyin Temple inscribed in the fifty-seventh year of the Kangxi reign: "More than thirty li east of Heyixian in Qinhuai lies the ancient Guanyin Temple in Baimagou Town. Its origin remains unknown. Records only show that it was renovated during the Zhizheng reign and survived into our dynasty."

The existing buildings of the temple are laid out symmetrically along a central axis. The preserved ancient structures include the Yama Hall, Middle Buddha Hall, Great Buddha Hall and side halls. In addition, there stands a large stone Buddha statue of the Northern Wei Dynasty, together with more than ten stone steles and carvings dating back to the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The Middle Buddha Hall is a wooden structure with a single-eave gable roof covered with grey cylindrical tiles. It measures three bays wide (11.00 metres) and three bays deep (8.70 metres).

The brackets under the eaves are of the one-block-two-lift type with cloud-scroll grasshopper-head ends. Two inter-column brackets are arranged in the central bay and one in each side bay. A continuous flat tie beam runs above all three bays. No brackets are set on the column tops, which directly support the ends of the seven-rafter beam. The corner columns of the front eaves show obvious upward camber and inward inclination.

Inside the hall are three-rafter, five-rafter and seven-rafter beams supported by melon-shaped short posts. Struts are erected above the three-rafter beam, and intermediate brackets are installed under the main purlins. Faint traces of painted patterns of dragons, phoenixes and flowers can still be seen on the three-rafter beam, five-rafter beam, seven-rafter beam and flat tie beam.

The wall is 0.9 metres thick, with a brick plinth and adobe upper part. The gable wall adopts the mixed brick-timber style. Although the stele records date the building to the Yuan Dynasty, structural features indicate that it was first constructed in the Yuan Dynasty and reconstructed in the Ming Dynasty.

On September 25, 2000, the People's Government of Henan Province listed the temple in the third batch of Provincial Key Cultural Relic Protection Units.