80 years ago, the modern literary hero Yu Dafu and his wife, friends traveled through the bottle kiln when the car broke down, so he got off the car to stop and enjoy the tour, who knows that this time the great literary hero left a deep impression on the bottle kiln ancient town, and then wrote the bottle kiln old street's grinding heart and horizontal street into his travelogue "National Highway Flying Car".
Since then, the bottle kiln ancient town has stayed under the pen and ink of Yu Dafu.
"Leisurely stepped on the bridge, stepped on the street market of the back kiln... In forty minutes, I visited the most lively street market in the town of Bottle Kiln, and saw the Huilong Temple Galan surrounded by green water on all sides. "Yu Dafu's bottle kiln old street is quaint, permeated with the fireworks of the times, and also records the prosperity of that era."
Aerial view of the old street of the bottle kiln
Today, the autumn wind awakens the years and re-walks the old street of the bottle kiln in Yu Dafu's pen, and the prosperity of that year fades faintly. However, the upgrading and transformation of the old street began in 2016, but it gave it a new life, and it still has charm when it is seen again.
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For the impression of bottle kiln old street, light rain is still stuck more than ten years ago.
Since graduating from Bottle Kiln Middle School in 2007, Xiaoyu has never returned to Bottle Kiln Old Street. Fourteen years later, looking back again, the bottle kiln old street is not what it used to be.
I still remember that in the summer when I went back to school to fill in the volunteer after the college entrance examination, the streets in the afternoon had become deserted. This old street once had too many memories, the childish faces of the groups after school, the teenagers chasing after the bike, patting stickers, buying clothes, buying books... It's just that the pictures of the past have blurred their eyes, and only the bluestone slabs are still telling the road taken by adolescence.
Old streets and alleys
Revisiting the old place with the mood of "long farewell reunion", I have long been unable to remember what these shops and shops have left in our youth after being transformed, the "old street" is not "old", and the renovated Republic of China style building has a historical charm, but it is less "humane". The scene of that year has become mottled, just walking to the familiar corner, you can still faintly feel the breath of youth, the nostalgic small molecules in the air.
Over the Bottle Kiln Bridge, and then a few steps west to the Bottle Kiln Old Street, from the Bottle Kiln Old Station (the south side of the Bottle Kiln Bridge) to the Bottle Kiln Middle School, through the Bottle Kiln Old Street, this 1 kilometer journey was particularly long at that time, all the way are greeting students, but now empty. The narrow streets and alleys, mostly lined with buildings from the 1970s and 1980s, are as old as a yellowed old photograph.
Bottle kiln old street
"I was most impressed by Xinhua Bookstore, where every weekend or after school, there are always three or three students borrowing comic books here." Xiaoyu recalled that the old street that he would walk every weekend in high school was no longer the grand scene of the past, but the small shops on both sides of the road were always full of students' cheers.
Xinhua Bookstore on the old street
After a moment of silence, Xiaoyu sighed again, "I asked uncle security to inquire, and Xinhua Bookstore is said to have moved to Fengxi Road." Without these cute high school students, I guess Xinhua Bookstore has also changed its taste. ”
Years later, Xiaoyu listened to his classmates at that time, and heard that the old street of the kiln in the bottle kiln before the transformation had closed many old shops, with dusty shop doors, mottled windows, missing corners of the eaves, crisscrossing wires, and the vicissitudes of the town.
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In them, the time of bottle kiln old street seems to be frozen, the houses are dilapidated, the roads are narrow, the line network is pulled randomly, the lack of sewage pipe network, the fire passage is not smooth and other historical problems, which have become the crux of the disconnect between bottle kiln old street and urban development.
As a result, at the end of 2016, a "reform" of comprehensive improvement of the town's environment completely ended the "decadence" of the old street.
The renovated bottle kiln old street retains the style of the 1970s and 1980s - stone paved paths, inlaid cobblestone buildings, yellow-brown window frames dotted with gray main tones, and the three- or four-storey small Western-style buildings of "Liberation Wind", as if an annual calendar of the times, tell the story here.
"Liberation Wind" small bungalow
"As the core block of the Liangzhu cultural site, the environmental improvement of the small town of the bottle kiln, the initial consideration of the planning is to integrate the cultural gene." We must retain, restore, and inherit what is left behind by the old foundation, which is the root and soul of the small town rectification. The deputy mayor of Bottle Kiln Town once said in an interview.
In just one year, the bottle kiln old street has changed its old appearance and new look. However, the stubbornness of a century-old shop and the appearance of life in the last century are all reproduced on the old street of bottle kilns.
Bottle kiln old street sericulture cultural center
Walking on the "new" old street, the pavement of the main street has become very wide, paved with stone slabs, and has the appearance of four or five meters. A number of well-preserved buildings such as the old cinema, the bottle kiln cocoon station, the Renhuaitang pharmacy, and the bottle kiln supply and marketing cooperative have been restored and upgraded, as if everything has returned to its former prosperity, and when you stop and stay, you can always imagine the endless flow of people and the shops selling along the street.
30 years ago, the most magnificent building on the old street was the bottle kiln cinema, when a ticket of 8 cents, you can buy it, and now it is like a historical film, time is frozen in the world of light and shadow.
Bottle kiln cinema
The kiln cocoon station of the bottle kiln, after the baptism of years, has withdrawn from the stage of history, and now what is displayed in front of us is the silkworm culture exhibition hall that records the spirit of the older generation, which records the strong friendship of the older generation for the silkworm culture.
In addition, the old street has also extended to new tourist attractions such as Yaoshan Park and Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition Hall, and petty bourgeois formats such as cafes and libraries have also been placed in this small street with historical traces.
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The reason why bottle kiln old street is called "old street" is that bottle kiln town is a historic town with a history of more than a thousand years, and old street was once the most lively place for bottle kilns. According to records, during the Tang and Song dynasties, most of the residents of the bottle kiln were engaged in pottery making, and the kiln mountain was "pottery caves were compared", and the town had the "first city in China", the Liangzhu cultural sites such as anti-mountain, and the famous Nanshan Yuan Dynasty Moya stone carvings and kiln mountain Song Dynasty folk kiln sites.
Liangzhu Jade Carving Museum
Xiao Yu still remembers that in the Bottle Kiln Middle School located at the foot of the Kiln Mountain, from the teaching building to the girls' dormitory, there was also a stone stele of the "Bottle Kiln Ancient Kiln Ruins", and behind the stone stele was the "Ruins and Broken Walls".
According to historical records, due to its special geographical location, the bottle kiln was once a military town in northern Zhejiang and a barrier to Hangzhou. In the long history of the river, this place has also experienced war, and the shops and houses of the white-walled Dewa have been turned into ruins and rubble in the fire.
"Looking at the remodeled old street now, it seems that the building has been reborn from the fire, and you can feel the inexplicable respect and the thickness of history." A local talkative bottle kiln man said.
Today, the exact location of bottle kiln old street is on the north bank of Theaurus Creek, centered on the heart of The Mill, the east-west direction of the street market is the outer kiln and the inner kiln, the outer kiln street is backed by the kiln mountain, the south is adjacent to the East Yaoxi, and the Liyao Street is calculated from the turn of the East Amaranth Creek and goes west to the foot of the main peak of the kiln mountain. To the south along dong moxi, Xixi Street is built next to the creek, and further south is Shangyao Street.
The old street of the bottle kiln is long, and it runs four or five miles from the yangqiao of the outer kiln along the Amaranth Creek to the mouth of the upper kiln. Among them, the Mozixin and Hengjie that Yu Dafu wrote in his travel notes were the most lively places in the bottle kiln old street at that time.
After the renovation and upgrading of the bottle kiln old street, it tried to recreate the style of the year, and created six major themes, such as the cultural tourism block, the yaoshan park, the cultural and creative block (the former intangible cultural heritage exhibition hall area) and the town living room (the former tourist service center), Nanshan Park and the Xiayang wetland.
At present, the most lively neighborhoods are Liyao Street, Shiliqu, Mozixin Street and Hengjie in the Cultural Tourism Block, and the merchants on both sides of the road have basically opened in addition to large-scale catering and long-term rental apartment merchants, eating, drinking and having everything.
In order to better inherit the intangible cultural heritage of the bottle kiln, the bottle kiln old street has also built a cultural and creative block with a total area of about 7750 square meters, and the exhibition halls such as the Yuhang Paper Umbrella Hall, the Liangzhu Jade Carving Hall, the Bottle Kiln Pottery Hall, and the Bottle Kiln Kite Lantern Hall have been opened free of charge.
The overall transformation of the old street of the bottle kiln also includes the upgrading of the kiln mountain park and the development of the kiln belt ruins, just like the old saying of the bottle kiln: the scenery is in the kiln mountain, and the history is at the foot.
Kiln Man Trail
Walk up the Yaoren Ancient Road, a hill, a trail in front of you, walk to the "Range Rover Pavilion", leisurely Amaranth Creek, historical old streets, bustling new city in full view.
Return to the old street, visit the ancient alleys again, and find an ancient well, no one is boiling, no cars and horses are noisy, and they have long been scattered among ordinary people in the eighteen wells and eighteen alleys.
At the beginning of the lanterns, the ancestral hall lanes, ancient wells, tile parks, sculptures, and various exquisite small scenes on the old street are reflected under the neon, and strolling through the town is full of laughter, which is not only a kind of happiness, but also a kind of enjoyment.