Suenobu Family Residence (Former Suenobudo Clinic) Nagayamon Gate

What Is the Suenobu Family Residence Nagayamon Gate?

The Suenobu Family Residence (Former Suenobudo Clinic) Nagayamon Gate is a single-story timber gatehouse built in 1927 in Wajiki, Geisei Village, Kochi Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on October 14, 1999. In Japanese it is 末延家住宅（旧末延堂医院）長屋門 (Suenobu-ke Jūtaku, Kyū Suenobudō Iin, Nagayamon). It is the formal front gate of a doctor's household.

The gate has a tiled hipped roof with its ridge running north to south and a building area of 35 square meters. It stands along the prefectural road that runs through Wajiki, facing east. The opening at its center leads to the family entrance on the east side of the main house.

Why It Was Registered

The Suenobu Family Residence Nagayamon Gate was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. It sits right on the road, which makes it the most visible building on the property and part of the everyday streetscape of Wajiki.

A Nagayamon is a gate built into a long, low row of rooms. In the Edo period such gates fronted samurai houses and the homes of leading village families. What is striking here is the date and the setting: a traditional gatehouse put up in 1927 in front of a Western-style clinic. Old form at the street, new practice behind it; that pairing sums up the whole compound.

What to Look For: Two Different Walls

When you stand in front of the Suenobu Family Residence Nagayamon Gate, look to either side. To the north runs a roofed wall designed to match the kamaya, the kitchen wing. To the south runs a concrete wall that leads to the separate clinic gate.

The roofed wall belongs to the domestic side of the household; the concrete wall guides patients to the clinic. Family and guests passed through the center of the gate, while patients went round to the south, and the choice of wall reflects that split. Compare the two sides and you will notice that concrete, still a new material in the late 1920s, appears on the clinic side.

In the Agency for Cultural Affairs' record photograph, the upper floor and gable of the main house rise above the white-walled gate. From the road the view is layered: the low gatehouse in front, the Western-style house behind.

Visiting the Gate

Because it faces the prefectural road, the Suenobu Family Residence (Former Suenobudo Clinic) Nagayamon Gate is the easiest of the four buildings to see. It is still the gate of a private home, however, and you cannot pass through it. Viewing is from the road only.

The road in front is a prefectural route, so watch for cars and pedestrians if you stop in front of the gate. Directions to the property and details of the village's guided walks are on the Suenobu Family Residence group page.