Birthplace of Hwang Yun-seok

About this place

This is the birthplace of Ijae Hwang Yun-seok (1729-1791), a linguist of the Silhak (practical learning) school in the late Joseon period. It was built by his father, Hwang Jeon. Ijae Hwang Yun-seok was a scholar who researched every field a scholar of the time could explore, and he was also a Confucian scholar. Built on a rubble-stone platform 80 cm high, the main quarters (anchae) is a thatched-roof house of seven bays across the front and two bays deep, a very large building that takes the typical house form of the southern region. The easternmost bay is a wooden floored hall, while the rest were built in the order of one room, a two-bay main hall (daecheong), and one kitchen; on the upper part of the north wall of the daecheong the ancestral tablets of the Pyeonghae Hwang clan are enshrined. Originally there was a shrine behind the anchae, but only its site remains, and it is said that the men's quarters (sarangchae) and the gate quarters (mungan-chae), which had been destroyed, were rebuilt in 1909. The roof of the old house is thatched; being a middle-class house it could well have been tiled, but it is said that thatch was used because of a rumor that covering it with tiles would press down the vital energy (hyeol) and bring misfortune upon the household.