Miyake Family Residence Rear Nagayamon Gate

About the Miyake Family Residence Rear Nagayamon Gate

The Miyake Family Residence Rear Nagayamon Gate (三宅家住宅裏長屋門, Miyake-ke Jūtaku Ura-nagayamon) is a single-storey wooden Nagayamon gatehouse of the late Edo period, dated to between 1751 and 1830, in Inarimachi, Kaita Town, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, and was entered on the register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on May 2, 2017. It has a tiled roof and a building area of 53 square meters.

The Miyake plot is long and narrow. The main house at the north end faces the old Saigoku Kaidō highway, while the Rear Nagayamon Gate closes off the south end. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the gate originally faced a riverbank on a former course of the Seno River. "Rear" marks it as the back gate of a house whose front was on the highway.

The main range runs east to west, 8.5 Ken long and 1.5 deep, with the gateway set slightly west of center. West of the gateway, a wing 3 ken by 2 extends northward and served as a stable.

Why It Was Registered

The Miyake Family Residence Rear Nagayamon Gate was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape of the nation. The Agency for Cultural Affairs values it as a building that shows how Kaita prospered by passing goods between land and water.

Kaita Town's heritage page explains that a passage through the estate linked the shop-front main house on the highway with this rear gate on the river harbor. The highway at the front was the land route; the riverbank at the back was the water route; and the Rear Nagayamon Gate was the family's door onto the water.

The stable built into the gate matters too. Horses meant overland haulage, and a place to tether them just inside a river-facing gate suggests the gate worked as a point of transfer, where goods landed by boat were loaded for the road, or the other way round. Here the reason for registration and the shape of the building coincide.

What to Look For

A long, shallow range

At 8.5 ken, the main range of the Miyake Family Residence Rear Nagayamon Gate is the longest east-west building of the six. Only 1.5 ken deep, it lies across the southern width of the plot and shuts off the back of the estate.

An off-center gateway

The gateway is not in the middle of the range but slightly to the west. Since the stable wing extends north on that side, anyone passing through the gate would find the stable right beside them. Convenience seems to have mattered more than symmetry.

The stable wing

On the west side, a section 3 ken by 2 projects northward as the stable, so the whole building forms an L in plan. Nagayamon often contain rooms or storage on either side of the gateway; at the Miyake Rear Nagayamon Gate, part of that space was given over to horses.

Visiting

The Miyake Family Residence Rear Nagayamon Gate is the back gate of a private house. You cannot pass through it, and the interior is closed (checked September 27, 2026).

The gate stands at the south end of the plot. We could not confirm from Agency or town sources what has become of the former river course, or whether the south face of the gate can be seen from a public road. If you look for it, you will need to go round to the south side of the estate rather than the highway side. Stay on the public road, keep away from the gateway, and do not aim a camera inside.