The East Hebei terrane, located in the northwestern part of the Eastern Block of the North China Craton, is characterized by the dome–and–keel structure, a common feature in most Archean cratons, with supracrustal rocks of granulite-facies to greenschist-facies occurring as rafts or belts within or between the domes consisting of tonalite-trondhjemite- granodiorite (TTG) gneisses. Metasediments of granulite-facies and amphibolite-facies from the western margin of the Qian’an gneiss dome were investigated for their petrography, mineral chemistry, phase equilibria modelling using THERMOCALC and zircon dating. The granulite-facies metasediments were revealed to show anticlockwise P–T paths involving the pre-peak pressure-increase to the UHT peak and post-peak decompression with cooling. The pre-peak pressure-increase process was constrained on the basis of the spinel and cordierite inclusions in garnet and the outwards increasing grossular (XGrs = 0.03→0.05) in the core of the atoll-like garnet to occur at 6–7 kbar at T = 1000 °C. The peak P–T conditions can be well constrained as 9–10 kbar / >1000 °C according to the maximum XGrs of 0.045–0.050 in garnet together with an average re-integrated anorthite content (XAn = 0.07) in K-feldspar. The peak temperature conditions are consistent with the ternary feldspar thermometer results mostly of 950–1020 °C for antiperthite and perthite, and in accordance with the development of oriented needle-like exsolution of Ti ± Fe oxides in garnet. The post-peak decompression with cooling can be defined, from the stability of final assemblages marked by the later growth of biotite, as 8–9 kbar / 820–880 °C. The amphibolite-facies metasediments were recognized to show clockwise P–T paths involving the pre-peak isobaric heating to the peak and post-peak isothermal decompression. The peak P–T conditions for a garnet biotite gneiss was constrained as 780–800 °C/10–11 kbar, which corresponds to the medium-P/T type, and the post-peak decompression was defined to 5–6 kbar of the low-P/T type. However, the peak P–T conditions for Mg/Al-rich schists from the same locality show the low P/T conditions of 6–7 kbar / 690–750 °C, similar to that of the decompression stage for the biotite gneiss. Zircon dating suggests that both the granulite-facies and amphibolite-facies metamorphism occurred at ~2.50 Ga, coeval with TTG magmatic activities. Combining the development of dome–and–keel structures, we prefer a vertical sagduction regime to interpret the tectonic evolution of the East Hebei terrane, which may be also significant for other Archean cratons.