Nagano Meijo Nagayamon Gate

The Gatehouse on the Zenkoji Road

The Nagano Meijo Nagayamon Gate (長野銘醸長屋門, Nagano Meijō Nagayamon) is a late Edo-period gatehouse on the northern edge of the Nagano Meijo sake brewery in Yahata, Chikuma City, Nagano Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 19, 2014.

It was built between 1830 and 1868 as a two-storey Dozo-zukuri structure with a tiled roof, covering 58 square metres. The registration number is 20-0477. It stands toward the east end of the brewery's northern boundary and opens directly onto the old Zenkoji Road, the Hokkoku Nishi Waki Okan.

The East Storehouse stands shoulder to shoulder with it to the west, and the West Storehouse occupies the far corner. Of the twelve buildings registered together in 2014, this is the front door.

Why It Was Registered

A Nagayamon combines a gateway with rooms built alongside it. At Nagano Meijo the western half is the gate and the eastern half a living room, where, according to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, a gatekeeper was once stationed.

Gatehouses of this kind are associated with samurai residences and with the houses of village headmen. The brewery's own history records that its founding family served as headmen, and a gate with a keeper's room suits that standing.

It was registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape, and the description credits it, together with the East Storehouse, with keeping the old street frontage intact. What a traveller on the Zenkoji Road saw of the estate is largely what you see today.

What to Look For

A Gate Built Like a Storehouse

Many gatehouses are timber-framed and lightly clad. The Nagano Meijo Nagayamon Gate is instead a thick-walled clay storehouse in construction. The gate front and the room are finished in white Shikkui plaster, and the base of the walls is protected with Shitami-itabari clapboarding. The effect from the road is solid and closed.

Gate on the Right, Room on the Left

Facing the gatehouse from the road, the gateway is on the right (west) and the keeper's room on the left (east), separated by a single wall, an arrangement that kept every arrival within the keeper's reach.

Gate and Storehouse Together

The gatehouse and the East Storehouse, with its hipped-gable roof end turned to the street, stand without a gap between them, so the northern edge of the estate reads as one continuous facade.

Visiting the Nagano Meijo Nagayamon Gate

Because it faces the road, the Nagano Meijo Nagayamon Gate can be seen from outside without entering the grounds. Through the gateway, the West Barn stands straight ahead. The interior of the keeper's room is not listed as open. Cars use the road, so choose where you stand with care.

Directions to the brewery and the arrangements for tours, open days and photography are covered on the Nagano Meijo page.