Yeongcheon Hyanggyo Confucian School

About this place

Yeongcheon Hyanggyo, with the typical layout of a school in front and shrine behind (jeonhak-humyo), was a provincial national educational institution where people paid homage to the sages of old at the Confucian shrine and honed their learning. Daeseongjeon, the shrine where ancestral rites are performed, enshrines the spirit tablets of twenty-five sages, including Confucius. Daeseongjeon was completed in 1435 by a Ming-dynasty carpenter in the Chinese architectural style, giving it a form rarely seen in Korea, and it is currently designated as Treasure No. 616. Myeongnyundang measures five kan across the front and three kan on the side, and its roof, when viewed from the side, is a gable roof in the shape of the character for 'person' (人). At the entrance stands Yuraeru (牖來樓), through which one can pass in and out, and in the front yard there is a 500-year-old Chinese scholar tree (Japanese pagoda tree); on either side are the eastern dormitory (Dongjae, 東齋) and the western dormitory (Seojae, 西齋), where Confucian students are said to have lived.