Haenam Hyanggyo, the local Confucian school, is said to have been founded in 1398, the seventh year of King Taejo's reign. While the exact founding date remains debated, it is relatively well documented that in 1482 (the 13th year of King Seongjong), the school was relocated from its original site to what is now Guygyo-ri in Haenam-eup. A hyanggyo was a state-established local educational institution that performed ancestral rites for Confucius and other sages while also educating and morally guiding the local populace — one of many such schools built across the country over Joseon's five centuries, and Haenam had its own.
In 1549 (the 4th year of King Myeongjong), the local magistrate and Haenam's yangban gentry oversaw the relocation of Daeseongjeon, the hall housing the ancestral tablets, to a site ten paces higher than where it had originally stood, and rebuilt it. The following year, in 1550, Myeongnyundang, the lecture hall where students studied, was likewise rebuilt, giving the school complex its full form for the first time. The decision to move the space honoring the sages to higher ground likely reflected the era's desire to elevate the ritual space's status. For nearly six centuries since, this site has remained largely unchanged, and Daeseongjeon Hall of Haenam Hyanggyo still holds its seokjeon ancestral rites on a regular schedule today.