Five highlights that repay attention
Each part of the garden has its own story and its own trick — walk it slowly and you'll find them all.
1
This is the reason people come. The artificial rockery in the south-eastern corner is built from hundreds of Taihu stones stacked into layers, threaded with more than nine winding routes that loop in and out, tunnels you crouch through, short dark grottoes and tight stone staircases up to the top. Step inside and getting lost is easy — most people lose the way on purpose. Look for the stones shaped like crouching lions as you go and the name starts to make sense.
When you finally come out of the stone, the garden opens onto a broad central pond ringed by wooden pavilions and covered walkways. This is the most photogenic spot in Lion Grove — the grey rockery reflected on the water's surface, with curved pavilion roofs and old trees behind it. A stone boat (石舫), built in imitation of a moored vessel, sits at the water's edge, and small stone bridges cross to the far bank. Sit in a pavilion for a moment and look back at the rockery; the whole composition reads far better from here than it did while you were inside it.
The western and northern sides of the garden hold a cluster of halls and reception rooms that once formed the home of the garden's later owners. Lion Grove passed through many hands; in the early 20th century it came into the Pei family — the same family as the world-renowned architect I.M. Pei, who designed the Suzhou Museum nearby. Walking through these halls you'll find timber furniture, Chinese calligraphy plaques and lattice windows that frame views of the garden like paintings. It's a good change of pace after working through the rockery.
The Qing Qianlong Emperor toured Suzhou several times and was especially taken with Lion Grove. He left calligraphy plaques in the garden, and admired the rockery so much that he ordered imitations built at the Summer Palace in Beijing and at the Chengde imperial retreat. Look for the plaques and stone inscriptions scattered around the garden, then picture how a modest temple garden ended up echoed inside the palaces of the capital.
5
Lion Grove is small — about an hour on foot — which makes it ideal to pair with the Humble Administrator's Garden, only a 5-minute walk north. The two are near-opposites: Lion Grove is all rockery you climb through, while the Humble Administrator's is a sprawling water garden of broad ponds, pavilions and a borrowed view of a distant pagoda. The free Suzhou Museum, designed by I.M. Pei, is right there too. Plan one morning and you can do all three.