Why is the horse head wall white

The Horsehead Wall belongs to the Huizhou style of architecture, which is characterized by "white walls and black tiles".

The Horsehead Wall is named after the top part of the wall, which looks like a horse's head. According to the shape of the horse's head on the top of the wall can be divided into magpie tail type, seal bucket type, sitting kiss type, gold seal type or ChaoWu type.

"Horse head wall" is also known as "seal fire wall", as the name suggests, seal fire, fire prevention. In ancient times, houses were mostly made of wood, and since they were built densely (this is a Chinese custom), in case of a fire, it would spread like a forest fire, so the "fire-sealing wall" was designed.

In the villages where people live in clusters, the density of residential buildings is high, which is not conducive to fire prevention conflicts are more prominent, and the high horse-head wall, in the event of a fire in the neighboring homes, play a role in isolating the source of the fire, so the horse-head wall is also known as the sealing wall of the fire.

Additionally, the tall walls and their eaves keep the walls from being wet by rain, keeping the wooden structure of the house dry and thus protecting the wooden main structure.

Variants

A kind of flying eaves and horns type of horse-head wall is popular in Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi, with Hunan's being the most obvious, such as the fire sealing wall of Du Fu's tomb shrine in Pingjiang County.

The one in Hunan and Hubei is similar to the "︶" shape, and the one in Jiangxi is similar to the "Ethel" shape, such as the fire wall in the riverside village of Yanxi Town.

This kind of warped horse-head wall is different from the aforementioned magpie-tailed horse-head wall, and many of the horse-head walls in Jiangxi are only magpie-tailed, not "Allo" shaped warped horse-head wall.