Kawai Family Residence Front Gate and High Wall

What Is the Kawai Family Residence Front Gate and High Wall?

The Kawai Family Residence Front Gate and High Wall (河合家住宅表門及び高塀, Kawai-ke Jūtaku Omotemon oyobi Takahei) is a timber gate and wall of the Taisho period (1912 to 1926) along the old Tanba Kaido road at the Kawai Family Residence in Ao Kajigamae, Nagaokakyo City, Kyoto Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2011.

The Kawai Family Residence Front Gate and High Wall runs along the road and turns west at its south end, 6.5 m long including the turn, under a tiled coping. The street face is divided into three bays, and the central bay is the front gate. Rather than a gate standing between two separate walls, one continuous high wall has a gate built into it.

Why the Front Gate and High Wall Was Registered

The Kawai Family Residence Front Gate and High Wall was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs values it as an element of the roadside scene.

Of the five registered structures, it is the one that meets the Tanba Kaido directly. Nagaokakyo City cites the Kawai Family Residence among the houses that keep the character of the old road, and for anyone walking along it, this gate and wall are the face of the estate: a Taisho-period frontage set before a late Edo farmhouse.

What to Look For

Read the Kawai Family Residence Front Gate and High Wall from the ground up. Long kerbstones (Nobeishi) are laid at the base, square posts stand on them, and a timber sill ties the feet of the posts together. At the top, brackets project from the posts to carry the tiled coping.

The central front gate has a small roof of its own and a latticed door. In the bays on either side, the lower wall is boarded (Koshiita) and the upper part finished in white Shikkui plaster, so the wall reads in two bands, brown timber below and white above, under a dark line of tiles.

A lattice door screens the view from the road while letting light and a sense of the house through. Pairing a tall wall with a gate that does not fully close off the house is a telling detail in the frontage of a roadside farmhouse.

Visiting the Kawai Family Residence Front Gate and High Wall

Because the Kawai Family Residence Front Gate and High Wall faces the Tanba Kaido, its exterior can be seen from the public road. Beyond the gate is a private home that is not open; no notice of public openings could be found as of October 2026.

Please do not linger at the lattice door or peer through it, and take photographs from the far side of the road. The layout of the whole estate and directions are on the Kawai Family Residence page.