Jugyu Head House

This is a residential house built by descendants to honour Jugyu O Un (吳澐, 1540–1617), a scholar-official and righteous army leader of the mid-Joseon period. When the Japanese invasion of 1592 broke out, O Un, together with Gwak Jae-u, raised a righteous army and distinguished himself in battle. He also wrote his personal anthology, the Jugyu Munjip, and the Dongsa Chanyo, a representative history book reflecting the historical outlook of the Namin (Southerner) faction of the mid-Joseon period. Jugyu Head House was built by O Un's descendants in the late 1700s to honour Jugyu O Un, and the house was at first named Jugyu Gutaek (Jugyu's Old House). It was rebuilt in 1906, but was moved to its present site after the great flood of 1920. At that time only the sarangchae (men's quarters) was moved as it stood; the remaining buildings, including the anchae (women's quarters), were newly built, and the shrine enshrining O Un's spirit tablet was built around 1953 in particular. The house was also the base of the 1 March Independence Movement in the Goryeong region, and during the Korean War it was used as an office of the Labour Party, giving it a history marked by both pride and hardship. Facing south at the foot of a low hill inside Songnim-ri village, the head house's layout is broadly divided into the main residential quarters, centred on the anchae, and the ritual quarters, where the shrine stands. The residential quarters comprise the sarangchae, the jung-sarangchae (middle men's quarters), the relics hall and the antae, each a separate building, together forming a broken-ㅁ-shaped layout. A building said to have stored printing woodblocks once stood on the sloping ground east of the anchae, but only traces of it remain today. The sarangchae, built in 1906, appears to be the oldest building in the head house. Of its four front bays, the right two bays are set back by about half a bay to form a narrow wooden-floored porch in front of the ondol-heated rooms, while the remaining two bays form the daecheong, an open wooden-floored hall. At the rear, a further metre or so was added, the space behind the ondol rooms being used as a wall closet; unusually, the space behind the daecheong was also fitted out as a small side room. Carrying no special ornamentation, the building is plain yet gives a solid, dignified impression through its sturdy timber. The relics hall holds 110 sheets of seven kinds of old documents and 12 volumes of seven kinds of books (Treasure No. 1203). Jugyu Head House carries the scholarly legacy of O Un, a mid-Joseon scholar-official and righteous army leader, together with the spirit in which he sought to save his country during the Japanese invasions of the 1590s. It also served as a cradle of education for awakening national consciousness during the enlightenment period of the late Joseon era and the Japanese colonial period, and it is further significant as the point of origin of the 1 March Independence Movement in the Goryeong region.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Goryeong, Gyeongbuk

Designation

Provincial Monument · 시도기념물