A single-bay gate on the road
The Murakami Family Residence Front Gate is an early Meiji Yakuimon gate in the Takajōmachi block of Makabe, Sakuragawa City, Ibaraki Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 12 July 2005. It stands near the middle of the western boundary of the plot, a little south of the shop block of the main house.
The opening measures 2.7 metres across. Its ridge runs north to south under a Kirizuma-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles. A yakuimon is defined by what happens behind the door line: two stout main posts carry the leaves, two slimmer and shorter posts stand behind them, and the ridge is set forward over the main pair rather than centred. The asymmetry is the point. It gives the gate a front and a back, and it makes the roof appear to lean toward whoever is approaching.
Both faces use a bracket-and-purlin arrangement in which the purlin is carried forward of the post line, deepening the eaves, and the underside is closed with boarding. Look up while passing through and a flat boarded ceiling meets the eye. The same construction appears on two-storey houses along these streets; here it is applied at the scale of a gate.
Wing walls run out to either side, each pierced by a wicket door so that people can come and go while the main leaves stay shut. The gate is said to have been brought from the senior Murakami household and re-erected here around 1902, when the main house went up. The gate itself is older, dating from the opening years of the Meiji era, which ran from 1868 to 1912.
Why a gate earns a listing of its own
The criterion recorded against the Murakami Family Residence Front Gate is contribution to the historic landscape of the country, under register number 08-0184. Listing an outbuilding on its own terms is unremarkable in Makabe, because gates here are not accessories to the streetscape. They are a large part of it.
Sakuragawa City records that once domain-era restrictions lapsed after 1868, merchant families put up yakuimon gates one after another. The result is a commercial town where gates and plank fences carry as much visual weight as shopfronts. More than 300 shop storehouses, godowns and gates survive in the town centre, and roughly 100 of them hold national registration.
The settlement itself goes back to the castle town below Makabe Castle, which in the early modern period became a country market town organised around the Jinya of the Kasama domain. The Edo-period street plan survives, and the roads have barely changed width. On 29 June 2010 an area of about 17.6 hectares was selected as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings, and Takajōmachi, where this gate stands, lies inside it.
Details worth stopping for
Of the four listed buildings on this plot, the Murakami Family Residence Front Gate is the one a visitor actually sees. The main house crouches low behind its lean-to, and the annex and storehouse sit so far back that only roof planes show above the boundary. The gate alone squares up to the road and does the work of a facade.
Start at the feet of the posts. The difference in girth between main post and rear post, and the spacing chosen between them, is where a carpenter declares how much depth the gate should seem to have. Then the eaves: the forward-carried purlin throws a hard shadow, while the boarded soffit bounces light back into the passage. The wicket doors in the wing walls are the only parts that still move every day, and their thresholds show it.
Trace the rooflines going east. Behind the gable of the gate comes the long flank of the main house, then the roofs of the annex and the storehouse layered beyond. The Murakami Family Residence Front Gate marks an entrance and also gives a first measure of how deep these plots run.
Seeing it, and getting there
This is the gate of a lived-in private house, so passing through it is not possible. The registered cultural property map published by Sakuragawa City states plainly that listed buildings are not open and asks visitors to stay off the grounds. For the Murakami Family Residence Front Gate that restriction costs little, since the whole structure reads from directly in front of it on the public road.
Nothing posted forbids photographing the exterior from the road. Shooting past the leaves into the grounds, or including the household, is a different matter. The street is narrow enough that a tripod will be in someone's way.
Makabe is walked rather than driven. The city map lays out a circuit of the old jinya quarter starting at Takajōmachi car park, about 70 minutes at an unhurried pace, and this gate falls along the route. Volunteer guides from the Sakuragawa City Board of Education meet at the same car park and cover similar ground in about 90 minutes at no charge, for groups of two or more who apply to Makabe Denshokan by the third Monday of the previous month.
Takajōmachi car park at 279-1 Makabe is free outside the doll festival held in February and March. By rail, Iwase Station on the JR Mito Line connects to Makabe in about 20 minutes on the Yamazakura GO city bus, a flat 200 yen with transport IC cards accepted. From Tsukuba Station the route runs by shuttle to Tsukuba-san Guchi and then by city bus. Drivers use the Sakuragawa-Chikusei interchange on the Kita-Kanto Expressway, then National Route 50 and Prefectural Route 41.
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Q&A
- Can visitors see the Murakami Family Residence Front Gate, or walk through it?
- The gate faces the public road and can be looked at freely from outside. It belongs to a private home, so walking through it and onto the grounds is not permitted; Sakuragawa City asks visitors to keep off the property of listed buildings.
- What kind of gate is the Murakami Family Residence Front Gate?
- A yakuimon of one bay with a single doorway. Slimmer rear posts stand behind the main pair and the ridge sits forward of centre. The opening is 2.7 metres wide, the roof is gabled and tiled, the eaves are carried on forward purlins with a boarded soffit, and each wing wall holds a wicket door.
- How old is the Murakami Family Residence Front Gate, and when was it listed?
- It was built in the early Meiji era and is said to have been moved here from the senior Murakami household around 1902. Registration followed on 12 July 2005 under number 08-0184, the same day as the main house, the annex and the storehouse on this plot.
- How do I reach the Murakami Family Residence Front Gate?
- Take the Yamazakura GO city bus from Iwase Station on the JR Mito Line, about 20 minutes at a flat fare of 200 yen. From Tsukuba Station, ride the shuttle to Tsukuba-san Guchi and change. By car, exit at Sakuragawa-Chikusei and follow National Route 50 and Prefectural Route 41 to Takajōmachi car park.
- What else is there to see around the Murakami Family Residence Front Gate?
- The same plot holds the main house, the annex and the storehouse of the Murakami family. Across the town centre more than 300 shop storehouses, godowns and gates remain, about 100 of them nationally registered, and the circuit from Takajōmachi car park takes roughly 70 minutes on foot.
Basic Information
| Name | Murakami Family Residence Front Gate |
|---|---|
| Location | 232 Takajomachi, Makabe, Makabecho, Sakuragawa City, Ibaraki Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) |
| Year Designated | Registered in 2005 (Heisei 17) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Timber, sangawara tiled roof, frontage 2.7 metres |
| Owner | Private. No owner name recorded in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database |
| Public Access | Not open. The gate faces the street and can be seen from outside |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: Murakami Family Residence Front Gate
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004699
- Sakuragawa City: Makabe Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/education/bunkazai/city_bunkazai/kuni_bunkazai/page003423.html
- Ibaraki Prefectural Board of Education: Makabe Preservation District, Sakuragawa City
- https://kyoiku.pref.ibaraki.jp/bunkazai/bunkazai-8557/
- Sakuragawa City: Registered Cultural Property Map (reverse)
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/data/doc/1487569963_doc_23_1.pdf
- Sakuragawa City: Makabe Townscape Volunteer Guides
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/education/syougai_gakusyu/page002208.html
- Sakuragawa City: Yamazakura GO city bus service
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/kurashi/koutsu/page005762.html
Last verified: 2026.09.08