The diverse roles the location has served have caused it to appear in English accounts under a variety of names, particularly before the adoption of pinyin as a standard romanization scheme.

[7] The merchants' involvement in northern maritime (北洋) trade led local Chinese to refer to it as the North Guildhall.

[2] Merchants from Fujian[14] first built it in 1191[12] under the Southern Song as a temple to the sea-goddess Mazu[14] in her role as the Empress of Heaven ("Tianhou").

[2][b] Samuel Wells Williams considered it Ningbo's "most elegant and solid building"; at the time, it was covered with well-done calligraphic scrolls and brush drawings, particularly on holidays.

"[10] He was drawn to its elaborate carvings and careful stylization: "even the minutest details among the ornaments of the building are full of deep significance to native art and the Buddhist or Hindoo mythology" (i.e., Chinese folk religion).

[10] The Ningbonese scholar Dong Pei studied the temple's history, inscribing his findings on a tablet preserved at the museum.

[2] It reopened to the public as a museum in June 2001, when the State Council designated it among its 5th batch of cultural relics entitled to national protection.

[16] Its naval exhibits include the wooden steering wheel recovered from the wreck of the SS Jiangya, which struck a mine near the mouth of the Huangpu River in 1948 as Shanghainese were fleeing to Ningbo from the oncoming Communists.

[2] The beams of the front stage mostly depict stories from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, including Three Heroes Fighting against Lu Bu and the Empty Fort Strategy.

It also includes some carvings of actors and auspicious designs such as Magpies Perching on Plum Trees, dragons, phoenixes, and peonies.