Iinuma Honke Rear Gate and Wall

The Gate That Closes the East Side

Iinuma Honke Rear Gate and Wall is a gate and fence of about 1954 in the Umabashi district of Shisui, Chiba Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 27 October 2017.

The pair marks the eastern boundary of the Iinuma Honke estate. The gate is a single-bay Yakuimon with a frontage of 2.8 metres, gabled and covered in Sangawara-buki pantiles. A wicket door opens on the north side, and short flanking walls run out to north and south. The northern one meets the gate at an angle rather than square on, following the line of the boundary. The wall is of wood under copper plate and runs 3.6 metres in total.

The estate has two gates, and the one used for daily comings and goings is elsewhere, which is why this one is the rear gate. It is not the main entrance, but it is the structure that gives the property its outline as seen from the road.

Listed for Being Plain

Iinuma Honke Rear Gate and Wall was listed under the criterion for structures that contribute to the historic landscape. The national record calls the construction simple, and that is meant as a description of its merit, not a reservation.

The assembly runs like this. Main posts dressed to a flattened rectangular section carry a lintel beam across the top. Above that a transverse beam picks up the purlin, and the ridge piece rests on a short strut. A yakuimon carries its roof on main posts with secondary posts behind, and here nothing has been added to that frame, no carving and no bracket clusters. Every member shows what it does.

At about 1954, this is the youngest of the six listed buildings on the estate. Nearly 300 years separate it from the mid-Edo main house, and the sequence of dates shows a compound that took shape slowly rather than all at once.

What to Look For

Stand on the road side and study where the flanking walls meet the gate. The southern wall runs straight into it while the northern one arrives on a slant. Nothing is symmetrical, so a frontal view pulls the eye slightly to one side.

Two roofing materials meet here. The gate is tiled and the wall is covered in copper plate, and a small step appears where one gives way to the other. Copper darkens with age, so the contrast with the tiles will be gentler now than it was when the pair was new.

The wicket door on the north side is worth a look. It lets a person through without swinging the main leaves, a normal fitting on a gate like this one that handles everyday traffic.

Visiting

Iinuma Honke Rear Gate and Wall stands outdoors and the exterior can be seen at any time, with no booking and no charge. The east side of the estate, facing the road, is the place to stand to read how the gate and its flanking walls fit together.

Everything inside the gate belongs to a working brewery, and visitors keep to the shop, the lawn and the other public parts of the grounds, so there is no walking through the gateway itself. No photography rules are published, though shooting the exterior from the road should present no difficulty as long as you are not blocking the way. Directions to the estate and opening hours are set out on the Iinuma Honke page.