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Lingering Garden was listed from the first as cultural relics
of national importance in 1961. With an area of 23,310 sq.m.it
is celebrated for its artistic way of dealing with the spaces
between various kinds of architectural form.Buildings make
up one third of the total area of the garden,the hall of which
being the most remarkable in Suzhou. The garden is separated
into the middle ,eastern,northern and western parts. The ancestral
temple and the house lie to the south of the garden.
Featuring man-made mountain and lake scenery in the west
and garden courts in the east,the middle part of the garden
is the original site of the Xu's East Garden and the Liu's
Hanbi Villa,and is regarded as the best part of the whole
garden. The eastern,northern and western parts are the extensions
of the Sheng's Garden. The eastern part is noted for its strangely
shaped limestones,the northern part idyllic scenes,and the
western part the delights of woody hills.
 A winding roofed
walkway behind the small entrance of the garden,while leading
to the places of quietude,shows the masterly use of contrast
between big and small,straight and zigzag,and light and shade.
After strolling for about 50 meters,one can catch a glimpse
of lattice-windows revealing a half visible landscape garden
behind. Interestingly enough,the view is changing at every
step.
The middle part of the garden is centered upon a lake with
man-made moutain in the north-west and a numger of attractive
buildings in the southwest ,such as the Hanbi Moutain Villa
,the Pellucid Tower,the Green Shade Pavilion,the Zigzag Stream
Tower,the Hao Pu Pavilion,and the Refreshing Breeze Pavilion
by the lake.The mountains made mainly of yellowstones and
earth,believed to be desigtned and piled up by Zhou Binzhong,look
very much archaic and splendiferous.The admirable Crane House,
the Small Garden of Stone Forest, the Return-to-Read Study
in the east with the Celestial Hall of Five Peaks as the chief
stucture are laid out in such a way that the indoor spaces
have been brought into perfect harmony with the outdoor spaces.
With an evocation of infinity,they are successfully made to
be labyrinthine.
 Flanked
by the Auspicious Cloud and Mountainous Cloud peaks,the 6.5-meter-high
Cloud-Capped Peak, the highest limestone in the classical
gardens of Suzhou, is believed to be left behind by the imperial
collector of the Northern Song Dynasty,Mass of buildings,
including the Old Hermit Scholars' House, the Cloud-Capped
Tower,the Cloud-Capped Terrace and the Awaiting Cloud Temple,are
put up to give emphasis to the Cloud-Capped Tower,The northern
part is now a bonsai garden in which about 500 valuable bonsai
are put on display.
 The
western part of the garden sets a fine example of good-looking
earthen hills studded with yellowstones and covered with maple
trees.There is a winding brook lined with peach trees and
weeping willows.
The number of stelae in the Lingering Garden has never been
surpassed by any other gardens in Suzhou.Superbly inscribed
with the works of more than a hundred calligraphers in the
Jin,Tang,Song,Yuan,Ming ,and Qing Dynasties, these invaluable
stelae bring to light the evolutionary course of Chinese calligraphy
in the past 1,000 years.
The whole garden possesses with pride 42 rooms and halls
, a 670-meter-long roofed walkway,200 lattice-windows of different
kinds, 44 parallel couplets and stone carvings , 373 stelae,and
17 such valuable old trees as gingkoes,southern wistaria,etc.
which fall into 8 catalogues.
Website:http://www.gardenly.com/
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