Ninomiya Family Residence Great Gate and Wall

A Row-House Gate on the Road

The Ninomiya Family Residence Great Gate and Wall (二宮家住宅大門及び塀, Ninomiya-ke Jūtaku Ōmon oyobi Hei) is a Nagayamon row-house gate first built in 1877 at the front of the Ninomiya estate in Hasuno, Seirō Town, Niigata Prefecture, with a roofed wall added when it was enlarged in 1935; it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2006. The gate is a single-storey timber building with a tiled roof covering 46 square metres, and the tiled wall runs for 16 metres.

The gate stands north of the Main House along the road in front of the estate. It measures 7 bays by 1 and a half, with rooms two bays long on either side of the passage. It went up in the middle of the rebuilding that followed the 1875 fire.

Why It Was Registered

The Ninomiya Family Residence Great Gate and Wall was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls the arrangement created in 1935 unusual.

In that year the central passage was raised. Behind the gate, a roofed timber wall on a coursed stone base was run from the west side of the passage toward the Main House, turning at a right angle. A visitor stepping through the gate is led along it to the house. An old gate type gained, in 1935, a route for receiving guests.

The New Inner Room reception wing was also built in 1935. The gate alteration and the new wing belong to the same year, which suggests the family was reorganising how it received visitors.

What to Look For

From the road, the central passage rises a step above the rooms on either side. That difference in height is the mark of the 1935 alteration on an 1877 gate.

Once through, turn around and follow the roofed wall as it leaves the west side of the passage and bends toward the house, timber on a stone base under its own tiled roof.

Visiting

The Great Gate faces the road, so its outer side can be seen from outside the estate. The inner side and the roofed wall can be seen during the early-summer garden and rose garden opening. The rooms in the gate are not open.

The raised passage is easiest to read from across the road. This is a family home, so outside the opening please do not linger at the gate or enter. Follow the on-site guidance on photography.