Phuong Bang Communal House

Phuong Bang Communal House, also called Ngoi village communal house (in Phuong Bang village, Son Dong commune, Hanoi), dates from the 17th century. Worship: tutelary deity Ly Phuc Man. Ranking: National Relic (1997).

Phuong Bang village has the vernacular name Ngoi village. Ngoi village communal house worships an unnamed human deity. According to legend, he was a talented general who made great contributions helping Ly Nam De defeat the invading Lam Ap army of Van Xuan, so the king gave him his daughter and changed his name to Ly Phuc Man. After his death, he was granted divine titles by dynasties and worshipped as a tutelary deity by many villages in the Hoai Duc area.

Phuong Bang Communal House was founded in the Le Trung Hung period. The communal house has gone through nearly 400 years with many restorations and embellishments. The current relic is grand in scale and still retains some characteristics of 17th-century architectural art.

The communal house faces southeast across a wide yard, with left and right ranges on both sides. The gate adjacent to the village road is built in nghi mon style with four pillars bearing Chinese couplets, and there are side doors beside the central door. The main hall consists of five bays and two wings connected to a two-bay rear sanctuary in a Dinh-shaped layout.

The left corner of the Phuong Bang communal house yard is shaded by a tall ancient bang tree. In front of the steps, beside a pair of stone guardian creatures, two stone steles stand on turtle backs but their inscriptions have faded. After restoration, rough-hewn columns make the interior space of the main hall seem narrower. As of September 2021, the decoration remained simple and there were very few traces of wood carving from the old architecture. Although in the main sanctuary there is a pair of phoenixes beside a pair of antique ceramic vases and an old-style horizontal plaque is hung, no votive curtains or couplets are found.

Phuong Bang Pagoda was ranked by the Ministry of Culture as a historical, architectural and artistic relic in 1997.