Tunxi Ancient Street

Tunxi Ancient Street lies in the center of Tunxi district, where the municipality of Huangshan is seated. Starting in the west from Zhenhai Bridge, a stone arch bridge crossing the river which was built in Ming dynasty, and ending up in the east with the tablet of memorial archways, it added up to 1273 meters long. Being well preserved, there are shops row upon row, with buildings simple and elegant. It is a commercial street only for pedestrians, with the building style of Ming and Qing dynasties, having the reputation of "The moving picture by the river on Pure Brightness".

Set up in Song dynasty, Tunxi Ancient Street, became a distribution center for goods and materials to Huizhou during Ming and Qing dynasties. With shops, it looks densely and compactly. The shops, workshops and residences form an organic whole, keeping the characteristic and operation layout of ancient store such as "front shop and back workshop" or "front shop and back house". The building is only 3-stoery-high, usually of tenon structure, stones based, bricks laid, wall built like a horse's head, small green tiles, wood carvings of Hui style, ancient shop signs, red-lacquered building with double-eaved roofs. They are simple and elegant, magnificent and clean. The pavement is 5 to 8 meters wide, laid by red flagstones of large size. With clear grain after a rain, it is as clean as a picture. Walking on this street, there is no noise and no disturbance, free and natural far, far away. It seems to be back in the ancient times, triggering off fantastic reveries...

The shop name in the ancient street, has a lot of culture meanings, embodying the speciality of that the merchants in Huizhou are scholar-merchants. Among which, there are shops with more than a hundred years history, such as "Tongderen" Medicine Shop, "Tonghe" Steelyard Store, "Chengdexin" Sauce and Pickle Shop, the production and display as well as its operation are still with ancient customs by now.