Yabashi Family Residence Front Gate

The Gate Between the Main House and the Retirement House

The Yabashi Family Residence Front Gate (矢橋家住宅表門, Yabashi-ke Jūtaku Omotemon) is a gate of the Kaei era (1848 to 1854) facing the old Nakasendō highway in Akasaka, Ogaki City, Gifu Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 1997.

It opens onto the highway between the Main House and the Retirement House, with a stretch of wall on either side. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a single-storey timber structure with board walls and a tiled roof, and believes it was built at the same time as the Shoin reception wing, whose formal entrance on the northeast corner leads straight to this gate.

If the Main House was the door for business and daily life, the Front Gate was the way guests were brought in to the Shoin. That the gate leads directly to the Shoin's entrance suggests the two were planned together.

Black Plaster to Match the Main House

The Yabashi Family Residence Front Gate was registered as a model of its type, and what the Agency highlights is the wall attached to it. The upper part is finished in black lime plaster and the lower part is faced with boards. That black plaster answers the black eaves and udatsu walls of the Main House, and the Agency notes that the gate was designed to harmonise with it.

The walls look like a supporting detail, yet they are what tie the long frontage together. The Agency calls the gate an element that expresses the character of a large estate. Its value lies less in the gate as a standalone object than in the way it links the Main House and the Retirement House into one front.

What to Look For from the Street

The Front Gate can be seen face-on from the public road. Take the gate and its walls in as a single surface first, following the band of black plaster above and the boarded lower section as they run along the street.

Then shift your eyes to the Main House. The black of its eaves and udatsu sits at the same pitch as the black of the gate: a Kaei-era addition tailored to a Tenpō-era house, which is the real point of interest here.

Visiting the Yabashi Family Residence Front Gate

The Yabashi Family Residence Front Gate belongs to a private estate that is not open to the public, and visitors cannot pass through it. It can be seen from the road along the old Nakasendō.

Even if the gate stands open, please do not step inside or look into the grounds, and keep photography to the public road. There is no admission charge or booking system.