Shenyuan Garden

The Shenyuan Garden is found in the Yanghe Hutong at Yan'an Road in Shaoxing. During the Southern Song Dynasty it was a private garden owned by the Shens. Inside the garden is a pool in the shape of a gourd, and the pool is surrounded by a number of buildings erected during the Southern Song Dynasty, including a tiny brogue fashioned out of stone slabs, a pool-side artificial mountain and a well.

The Shenyuan Garden rose to fame as early as the Southern Song Dynasty, due in most part to the fact that this was the site where the celebrated poet Lu You wrote the famous poem Phoenix Hairpin: