Old Summer Palace

The Old Summer Palace is a large park with nice gardens and a lot of temples. Everything was extremely grand and valuable but unfortunately only ruins remain. The area was totally destroyed by British and French troops in 1860. All that remains are a lot of broken rocks in all sizes. It is very unfortunate that it was destroyed because it would have been fun to see how it looked like when everything was in its original shape. I can imagine it was a very impressive place.

The Old Summer Palace was the imperial residence, but he also did all the work from there. Emperor Kangxi began building the park in 1707, then in a relatively small scale, but it was later extended by succeeding emperors.

The park is divided into three distinct parts, three different gardens with their own buildings. The total area is about 1.4 square miles. By comparison, the new Summer Palace is 1.1 square miles and the Forbidden City only about 0.3. Part of the park is built in European style with the help from two Frenchmen who was hired by the Emperor Qianlong. There are also some buildings in Tibetan and Mongolian style, a way for the emperor to show how broad his empire was.

The park was destroyed

It was British commander Lord Elgin, who gave the order to destroy the park on October 18, 1860. The reason was that the Chinese under the leadership of Emperor Xianfeng had tortured and killed eight westerners, including two British diplomats and a journalist from The Times. Lord Elgin did not want to harm civilians or destroy the city of Beijing, so he decided that the Old Summer Palace should be leveled to the ground. 3500 soldiers helped to demolish, burn and destroy the park, and it burned for three days. It was the last thing that happened in the second opium war.

The park in the future

Many are interested in restoring the park, but such plans are usually thwarted since the park is an important part of the Chinese history. The Chinese government has decided to maintain the park as it, as a reminder of what happens when you choose to be dominated by foreign forces. Furthermore, it would be an extremely expensive and complex project to rebuild everything again. However, they have restored the gardens and many channels in the park, so you can imagine how the landscape looked like at that time.

A lot of what was plundered from the Old Summer Palace on those days in October 1860, is currently located in various foreign museums around the world. The Chinese government is working hard to try to get everything back, but it is an expensive and slow process. Everything that has been recovered so far can be seen in Beijing National Museum.

Getting there

Old Summer Palace is located in Beijing, about 5 miles northwest from the center, just west of Tsinghua University and east of the new Summer Palace. It can be reached most easily by taxi. Admission is low, 20 RMB per person (subject to change).