Nhuệ Giang Communal House, Hiền Giang Hamlet, Thường Tín Commune, Hà Nội City

The Nhuệ Giang Communal House has a fairly early construction history and has gone through the ups and downs of the nation's history; to date, the communal house no longer preserves documents clearly recording the year of its founding. To determine the relative date of the house's existence, the following bases can be used: According to the village elders, Nhuệ Giang Communal House was built a very long time ago on this land. On the upper beam of the central bay there is still an inscription: 'Thành Thái ninth year, second month, fifth day, auspicious time for repair and erection of beams and columns, greatly auspicious'—the 5th day of the 2nd month of the 9th Thành Thái year (1897), when the relic was repaired. A woodblock recording the background and merits of the village's tutelary god bears the year Mậu Tuất, Thành Thái era (1898), copied from a divine genealogy dated the 2nd Hồng Phúc year (1573). The communal house has 06 royal edicts conferring titles on the village tutelary god and the Holy Mother, dating from Đồng Khánh 2 (1887), Duy Tân 3 (1909), and Khải Định 9 (1924) (recently the communal house's system of edicts has been lost). In addition, there are many ritual objects such as dragon thrones, incense tables, curtained doors, horizontal plaques, and couplets... bearing the artistic style of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Thus, through the above evidence, we can conclude that Nhuệ Giang Communal House was at least initially built in the 18th century. Later, in the 9th Thành Thái year (1897), the relic was restored and repaired, and the inscription was carved on the upper beam.

Existing to the present, the relic has undergone many restorations and repairs, specifically in the 9th Thành Thái year (1897). In the early 20th century, the relic was renovated, but no documents record in which years. In recent years, the communal house has been renovated: In 2000, the relic was renovated: the upper beam of the Main Hall was replaced, and the foundation, yard, enclosing wall, and communal house gate were additionally repaired...

Nhuệ Giang Communal House is currently located on a large plot in the northern part of the village, with an area of more than 1,358.9 m2. From the road on the Nhuệ River dike, crossing a small bridge leads to the relic. The components of the relic include: the communal house gate, the communal house yard, with several trees in front creating landscape and shade, followed by the main architecture of the communal house in the 'chữ nhị' (two-character) layout, including the Main Hall and the Rear Shrine. Behind the communal house is the village pagoda; in front, on the bank of the Nhuệ River dike, is a shrine to Mrs. Vương Thị Ngọc, mother of the village tutelary god. According to local elders, Nhuệ Giang Communal House was formerly built in a northeast direction outside the Nhuệ River dike. Due to the influence of the Nhuệ River, villagers moved the communal house to a plot called a propitious site shaped like a 'turtle' near the village residential area. The communal house was built facing northwest, with its culvert opening to the front; the yard is wide, with two rows of side corridors (tảo mạc) on either side; the communal house was built with traditional architectural structure, and all doors were made in the folding-panel style, which the people have preserved to this day. To date, the two rows of tảo mạc no longer exist, and the door system has changed; the current state is described in the following section:

The beginning of the relic area is a ceremonial gate with two pillars attached to the enclosing wall, followed by a wall connecting the side wings. The pillars are square, and their tops are decorated with four phoenixes with heads facing four directions and tails converging to form a chái giành motif on the pillar body, creating frames for inscribed couplets. Through the gate is a wide brick-paved yard; in front of the yard is a scroll-shaped screen attached to the low enclosing wall of the communal house, with pillars on both sides of the screen decorated with nghê. 2. Main Hall: it consists of 5 bays, built with gable walls in the bít đốc tay ngai style; in front are 2 square biểu pillars, their tops decorated with kneeling nghê, followed by a lantern section with panels decorated with the four sacred creatures (dragon, ly, turtle, phoenix), and the pillar body is square. The roof is covered with local tiles, the ridge is built in the bờ đinh style, and the two ends of the ridge are decorated with đấu nắm cơm, giving the architectural work a sense of elegance and lightness. The house is built on a foundation 25 cm higher than the yard surface, edged with bricks, and two steps lead up to the house floor at the front.

The architectural structure has four rows of wooden columns supporting the roof in the 'thượng thu - hạ thách' style; the wooden columns stand on square stone bases sunk into the floor; the floor is boat-shaped, with the central bay 25 cm lower than the side bays, paved with square tiles and partly with gạch chỉ bricks. The roof trusses are made in the 'thượng chồng rường giá chiêng, tiền kẻ hậu bẩy' style; the two trusses of the central bay are made in the 'cốn' style both front and rear. The side trusses are made in the kẻ trường style, with front kẻ and rear bẩy. The front opens with three wooden panel-joined doors. The interior of the Main Hall is left empty to create a spacious, airy space for community cultural activities. The current architectural structure of the communal house follows the artistic style of the Nguyễn period, 19th–20th centuries, recognizable through decorative motifs of dragons transforming into leaves, elegantly and openly placed on the ván mê, beams, and ends of the eave bẩy.

Rear Shrine: The Rear Shrine is built parallel to the Main Hall, consisting of 5 bays with gable ends built in bít đốc style, roofed with local tiles, ridge in bờ đinh style; the two gable bays serve as rear altars; the three central bays are divided into two layers, with the outer layer worshiping the mandarins and the inner Rear Shrine serving as the altar to the tutelary god. The roof truss structure is in the 'vì kèo quá giang cột trốn' style, placed on 4 wooden columns and walls with added pillars. In the middle of the Rear Shrine, a platform is built for the village tutelary god's altar. The floor is paved with square tiles. The Rear Shrine has 3 doors: the central bay has a folding-panel door with relief carvings decorated with the four seasons theme and seal-script motifs; the two side bays have small doors serving as passages into the Rear Shrine.

The decorative art on the architecture and sculpture is concentrated in the Main Hall, shown on the cốn nách panels, con giường, ends of bẩy, đấu kê... with relief carvings of cloud dragons, leaf dragons, dancing phoenixes, clouds, water waves, long hóa, old chrysanthemums....

With relief and raised carving, on the dragon heads and bodies, the curling clouds and water waves are rendered meticulously...