Hope to restore 200-year-old national monument in Hai Phong

Dinh Le Hop la di tich duy nhat tai xa Tam Da duoc cong nhan di tich lich su - van hoa cap quoc gia. Kien truc dinh kieu chu Dinh co 5 gian tien duong va 2 gian hau cung. Mai dinh lop ngoi ta 2 lop, noc mai trang tri doi kim ngam bo noc. Duoi bo noc mai dap 5 tru dau hinh chu T pho bien o nhung cong trinh kien truc dau the ky XX o nuoc ta.

Le Hop Communal House is the only relic in Tam Da commune recognized as a national historical and cultural relic. The communal house has a Dinh-shaped architecture with 5 front rooms and 2 back rooms.

Dinh Le Hop is the place to worship Thanh Hoang Pham Dam (Pham Dam), one of the generals of Hai Ba Trung who participated in the uprising against the Eastern Han invaders in the 1st century.

The communal house still preserves many valuable worship objects dating from the 18th century to the early 20th century such as the dragon pavilion, incense table, statues of mandarins, military mandarins, and Thanh Hoang statues... reflecting the festival culture of Le Hop village.

The details and carvings are concentrated in the front hall, like the meeting point between yin and yang, gods and humans. At the ends, the panels of the arched doors, large characters, scrolls and parallel sentences are elaborately carved with classical stories such as dragon, unicorn, turtle and phoenix.

The ancient bell is about 200 years old and is kept in Le Hop communal house.

Not only having cultural value, Le Hop communal house is also a place to mark many historical events of the locality. During the resistance war against the French, the communal house was the place to organize training classes for the executive committee of the commune militia of the whole district; the place where the second congress of the Tam Da commune party cell took place (October 1949); the place where the troops of unit 112 and local guerrillas gathered to attack and break the siege, threatening the enemy in April 1952. Mr. Nguyen Thanh Do, the caretaker of Le Hop communal house, said that the wooden pillars in the communal house still bear traces of bullet holes fired by the enemy during the resistance years.

Dinh Le Hop is a typical cultural heritage recognized by the state in 1994. The relics, artifacts, genealogy, and system of royal decrees are valuable sources of documents, valuable for research in many aspects such as: architecture, traditional arts, cultural activities...

Mr. Nguyen Tien Duy - Head of the Communal House Festival Committee of Le Hop - said: The most recent renovation of the communal house was in 2009, but up to now, the communal house has seriously degraded, every time it rains, it leaks. When it rains heavily, the water is up to the feet.

Every time there is a heavy rain, the festival committee members and the people bring basins and pots to catch the water and use tarpaulins to cover the worshiping objects. However, this only helps a little, after each rain the temple deteriorates further, some wooden pillars are rotten, hollow, the walls are moldy and cracked...

The wooden door system also deteriorated over time. Villagers had to use wooden pieces to temporarily support and reinforce it.

The walls were built with ancient Bat Trang bricks, but now they have deteriorated, the mortar is peeling off, allowing water to seep in from the outside every time it rains.

After storm No. 3 - Yagi, many structures on the communal house roof collapsed and shifted. "The authorities surveyed and informed that the communal house is on the list of monuments that will receive public funding for restoration in 2027. However, in reality, the monument has been very degraded, especially after the recent storm Yagi. Therefore, local people hope that the city will pay attention and speed up the restoration time for the monument to preserve its structures and architectural objects... Along with the public funding of 2 billion VND from the city, the locality will mobilize donations and socialize to have more funding to restore and embellish this monument" - Mr. Nguyen Tien Duy said.

“Co quan chuc nang co khao sat va thong tin dinh nam trong danh sach duoc thanh pho cong tro kinh phi tu bo nam 2027. Tuy vay, thuc te di tich da rat xuong cap, nhat la sau bao Yagi vua qua. Do vay, nhan dan dia phuong mong muon thanh pho quan tam, day som thoi gian tu bo cho di tich de bao ton cau kien, vat kien truc...” – ong Nguyen Tien Duy cho hay.

It is known that the city currently has 119 national monuments. Resolution No. 82/2022/NQ-HDND dated December 9, 2022, Hai Phong provided 103 billion VND to renovate and restore 73 national monuments, with different levels of support, from 500 million, 1 billion, 2 billion VND, depending on the level of degradation of the monuments. Implementation period is from 2022 to 2027.