What the Yaguchi Yoshie Family Residence Nagayamon Gate and Main House is
The Yaguchi Yoshie Family Residence Nagayamon Gate and Main House is an early Meiji gate range and dwelling at Sakurai in Makabe, Sakuragawa City, Ibaraki Prefecture, entered in the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 12 July 2005 under registration number 08-0190.
The surname reads Yaguchi, not Taniguchi. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the full reading as yaguchi yoshie ke jūtaku nagayamon oyobi shuoku (谷口義衛家住宅長屋門及び主屋), and the other Yaguchi households a few hundred metres down the same road are read the same way.
A Nagayamon is a gate with rooms built into the range on either side of the opening, the form that village headmen and samurai households used to close off the road front of an estate. What carries the registration here is one such range together with the living wing behind it, counted as a single structure with a building area of 190 square metres.
The gate did not begin on this plot. It was dismantled in the former village of Amabiki, a short distance away and now part of Sakuragawa City, and re-erected at Sakurai around 1892 with heavy alterations. A Geya pent roof was hung to the right of the gate mouth so the front could be worked like a shop, and the living quarters went up behind it. The Agency for Cultural Affairs classifies the building under tertiary industry rather than housing, a direct consequence of that shop frontage.
The range runs 10 ken 5 shaku along the road, about 19.7 metres, and 2 and a half ken deep, about 4.5 metres. It stands one storey high under a hipped Yosemune-zukuri roof laid with Sangawara-buki pantiles. The left-hand 2 and a half ken of the frontage is a storeroom. Because the registered figure of 190 square metres is more than twice the footprint of the gate range on its own, roughly half of what the register protects is the wing added behind.
Why the building is on the national register
The Yaguchi Yoshie Family Residence Nagayamon Gate and Main House was registered under the criterion covering buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country. That criterion asks what a building does for the road it faces, not how refined it is when considered alone.
Makabe began using the Registered Tangible Cultural Property system in 1999 and worked through building after building over the following years, reaching roughly 100 registered structures in the town. This gate and house belong to the batch dated 12 July 2005, the same day as the neighbouring Yaguchi buildings at Sakurai.
In 2010 about 17.6 hectares of Makabe-cho Makabe were selected as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings. Sakurai sits north of that line and outside it. Registration alone is what holds the northern approach to the town together, without the repair and design controls that apply inside the district.
What sets this building apart is the collision of two building types. A nagayamon is estate architecture, meant to display a household's standing to the road. A shopfront is commercial architecture, meant to sell. Joining them, and doing it with a second-hand gate carted in from another village, belongs to the decades when Makabe was reorganising itself around trade and silk reeling. The registered cultural property map published by Sakuragawa City describes the compound as a rare mid-Meiji house.
What to look at from the road
Begin with the eaves over the gate mouth. They ride on a degeta bracket of 3 tiers, a bracket built by stepping purlins outward one stage at a time so the roof reaches further than the wall plane would otherwise allow. 2 tiers are usual around here. 3 is what the Agency for Cultural Affairs picks out as the distinguishing feature of the Yaguchi Yoshie Family Residence Nagayamon Gate and Main House.
Then walk back far enough to take in the length. Just under 20 metres of unbroken ridge is a lot of frontage for a building only one storey tall, and since the roof is hipped rather than gabled there is no triangular end wall to stop the run. The tiles carry the eye the whole way.
The front is deliberately off balance. The gate opening sits away from centre. To its right the pent roof drops lower and pushes forward, marking where the shop counter once faced the road. To its left the wall closes up into the storeroom, which had no reason to open outwards at all.
The join at the back repays a look as well. Where the range meets the wing added around 1892, the roof planes change pitch, and the break is visible from the road at an angle. It is the plainest evidence on the building itself of the two-stage history the register describes.
Visiting the Yaguchi Yoshie Family Residence Nagayamon Gate and Main House
This is a private home. There is no interior access, no opening hours and no admission charge, and Sakuragawa City asks visitors to view registered properties from outside and to stay off the grounds. Photography from the public road raises no difficulty; framing shots so residents and parked cars stay out of them is ordinary courtesy.
By rail, the nearest station is Iwase on the JR Mito Line, about 20 minutes away by taxi. From Tsukuba Station a Tsukuba City bus runs to Tsukubasan-guchi in about 50 minutes, where a Sakuragawa City bus carries on for a further 20 minutes. Drivers leave the Kita-Kanto Expressway at Sakuragawa-Chikusei and reach Makabe in about 20 minutes, or come up from Tsuchiura-kita on Route 125 and Prefectural Route 41 in about 50 minutes.
Parking is at Makabe Takajomachi (279-1 Makabe, Makabe-cho, Sakuragawa City), with space for 65 cars. That lot lies in the middle of the preservation district, so reaching the Yaguchi Yoshie Family Residence Nagayamon Gate and Main House means walking north out of the old town centre. On the city's registered cultural property map, Sakurai is an optional loop of about 20 minutes added to the main circuit around the old magistrate's quarter, itself about 70 minutes at an unhurried pace.
Winter suits a long low roof like this one. The roadside trees are bare, the sun sits low, and the 3 tiers of the degeta throw shadows that vanish altogether under a midsummer noon.
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Q&A
- Can the inside of the Yaguchi Yoshie Family Residence Nagayamon Gate and Main House be visited, and is there an admission fee?
- No. The building remains a private residence and the interior is closed. There is no admission fee because there is nothing to enter. Sakuragawa City asks that registered properties be looked at from the road and that visitors not step onto private ground.
- How do I reach the Yaguchi Yoshie Family Residence Nagayamon Gate and Main House from Iwase Station?
- Iwase is on the JR Mito Line, and a taxi from there takes about 20 minutes to Makabe. The address is Sakurai 1, Makabe-cho, Sakuragawa City, on the northern side of the old town. Drivers can park at Makabe Takajomachi and walk north.
- Why is the surname in Yaguchi Yoshie Family Residence Nagayamon Gate and Main House read Yaguchi rather than Taniguchi?
- Because that is the reading the household uses, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs records it in kana as yaguchi. The characters 谷口 are more often Taniguchi elsewhere in Japan, but every Yaguchi property registered in this part of Makabe carries the same reading.
- What makes the Yaguchi Yoshie Family Residence Nagayamon Gate and Main House different from other nagayamon in the area?
- Two things. It was moved here from the former village of Amabiki around 1892 rather than built on site, and on arrival it was converted so that the right side of the gate mouth worked as a shop under a pent roof. The degeta bracket of 3 tiers over the opening is the detail the national record highlights.
- Is the Yaguchi Yoshie Family Residence Nagayamon Gate and Main House inside the Makabe preservation district?
- No. The district selected in 2010 covers about 17.6 hectares of Makabe-cho Makabe, and Sakurai lies beyond its northern edge. The building is protected as a registered property rather than as part of the district.
Basic Information
| Name | Yaguchi Yoshie Family Residence Nagayamon Gate and Main House |
|---|---|
| Location | Sakurai 1, Makabe-cho, Sakuragawa City, Ibaraki Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) |
| Year Designated | Registered 12 July 2005 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Building area 190 square metres. Gate range 10 ken 5 shaku wide (about 19.7 metres) and 2 and a half ken deep (about 4.5 metres) |
| Owner | Private owner (no owner name recorded in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database) |
| Public Access | Not open to the public; exterior visible from the road |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: 谷口義衛家住宅長屋門及び主屋
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004705
- Cultural Heritage Online: 谷口義衛家住宅長屋門及び主屋
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/151315
- 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
- Sakuragawa City: The Townscape of Makabe
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/tourism_guide/learn/page000455.html
- Sakuragawa City: Walking Makabe, registered cultural property map (PDF)
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/data/doc/1487569963_doc_23_1.pdf
Last verified: 2026.09.09