At the end of the Ming Dynasty, people in Hongcun Village set up six private schools in the northern bank of the Southern Lake, otherly known as “colleges by the lake side”, for their offsprings to get cultivated. In 1814, the 19th year during the reign of Emperor Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty, the six schools were amalgamated and rebuilt into a new school called “The Private School of The Wen's”, or the Southern Lake College. An architecture of traditional Hui style, the college is constituted with Zhidao (to mark one's ideal) Hall, Wenchang (the flourish of civilization) Pavilion, Qimeng (to enlighten) Pavilion, Huiwen (to know about literature) Pavilion, Wanghu (to look over the lake) Pavilion, and Zhiyuan (the garden of veneration). Zhidao (to mark one's ideal) Hall is used for teachers to give leactures, while in Wenchang (the flourish of civilization) Pavilion, the shrine of Confucius is oblated, for the students to revere and worship.

Qimeng (to enlighten) Pavilion is where the kids get enlightened; Huiwen (to know about literature) Pavilion is for the students to read and appreciate the Four Books and the Five Classics; Wanghu (to look over the lake) Pavilion is somewhere tpo refresh after learning; and Zhiyuan (the garden of veneration) is for residence. The college has the lakebeforen it, and chains of houses behind, with pinkish walls and black tiles, green water and the blue sky reflecting against each other.

A series of renowned personages have obtained their enlightenment here, for example, Wang Kangnian, Grand Secretary of the royal cabinet in the Qing Dynasty; Wang Daxie, minister to UK and Japan, and agent state minister of the Republic of China (1912-1949); and Li Xiaojuan, famous scientist and elite member in researching and lauching the Australian satellite. In the year of 1998, the college was authorised as a key cultural relic protection unit in Anhui Province.