Taohuawu Street

Taohuawu Street

Taohuawu street is located in the northwest of Gucheng District, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. It is an east-west street, famous for Tang Yin's former residence and Taohuawu woodcut New Year pictures.

geographical position

Taohuawu street is located in the northwest corner of the ancient city of Suzhou, to the west of Beisi tower, starting from Renmin Road in the East and reaching Baocheng qiaonong in the West. It is an east-west laneway street. The section from Renmin Road to danjiaqiao originally belongs to Pingjiang District, and the section to the west of danjiaqiao originally belongs to Jinchang district. After the zoning adjustment in 2012, the whole street belongs to Gusu district.

Place name allusion

In the Tang and Song Dynasties, peach trees were planted in the northwest of Taohua River, which was called Taohuawu. This is the origin of street names. "At that time, the people of the county traveled here to see flowers in spring, and then they were all vegetable gardens, and sometimes there were flower growers." (Gusu Zhi) Du Xun Heyou of Tang Dynasty once wrote the poem of Peach Blossom River. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhang Lei, the grand master, once built Taohuawu villas and planted peaches and plums. In 1505, Tang Yin built "Taohua nunnery" here, which made Taohuawu famous. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Taohuawu was the gathering place of handicraft workshops. Taohuawu woodcut New Year pictures had a long history and were well-known at home and abroad, with more than 100 workshops. In addition, there were also workshops for making fans, bamboo, ivory carving, mounting, wax sticks, tin ware, etc., which became a colorful craft street with prosperous commerce.

According to Tongzhi's Suzhou Fu Zhi, there is no Taohuawu in the old records, but it was very famous in the Tang and Song dynasties. Gu Hanji said: "the structure of the Song Dynasty's Taishi Zhang Yao is that many peaches and plums are planted, and the county people travel here in spring." Wu county annals of the Republic of China also notes: "Wu Mu yuan annals: Bo Cheng, Zi Jing, once built Taohuawu, later named Li." The painting of Gusu is marked as North Street, while the painting of Suzhou City, Wu County and Suzhou are all marked as Taohuawu street.

Streets and alleys

Most of the houses on both sides of the street are decorated with white walls and ancient tiles. It is one of the typical streets and alleys in the ancient city with "beautiful scenery of small bridges and flowing water, and the residents along the bank can pillow the river". In the Republic of China, only rickshaws were allowed to cross each other. In 1963, it was initially widened to 6 meters in 1983, and it was renovated again in 1984. It was originally a pebble road, but now it is a small square stone road, with a total length of 935 meters and a width of 9.6 meters.

In 2003, part of the pavement in the west section (from Taowu bridge to taohuaqiao Road) was widened and reconstructed to a 300 meter long asphalt pavement with a width of 12.5 meters in coordination with the extension project of Zhongjie road.

Historical relics

There are many ancient houses in this street, such as the former Qianjiang guild hall at No. 98, feizhai at No. 176, Nanyang midwifery school at No. 240, Xie's garden at No. 264, etc.

Address: Taohuawu Street (between Renmin Road and changmen West Street)

Longitude: 120.612588

Latitude: 31.319758

Chinese PinYin : Tao Hua Wu Da Jie