Mizote Family Residence Nagayamon Gate

The Gatehouse on the Road

Mizote Family Residence Nagayamon Gate (溝手家住宅長屋門, Mizote-ke Jūtaku Nagayamon) is the mid-Edo gatehouse of a wealthy farming family's estate in Hayashima, Okayama Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2021.

A nagayamon is a gate with rooms built into the wings on either side, the standard entrance for village headmen and prosperous farmers in Edo-period Japan. This single-storey timber example opens onto the road on the east side of the compound and covers 55 square metres. For the Mizote, whose members held village office, the gate was the part of the house that spoke to the street.

Why It Was Registered

The gate was registered under number 33-0346 for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as giving the front of the site real weight.

Only four of the ten buildings on the estate are dated to the mid-Edo period: the main house, No. 3 Storehouse, the warehouse and the Mizote Family Residence Nagayamon Gate. Gate, front garden and house laid out one behind another form the backbone of the compound, and the advisory report valued exactly that ensemble.

What to Look For

The roof is a hip-and-gable form in hongawara tiles. The eaves are set high and carried on projecting brackets in the degeta-zukuri manner, which lets them reach well out over the wall.

The walls show their posts in shinkabe fashion under white plaster. Only the east face, the one that looks onto the road, has a lower band of namako-kabe tile-and-plaster work. The most laborious finish went on the side the public sees.

Inside the Mizote Family Residence Nagayamon Gate, which is not open, the roof framing changes along its length. At the cross-walls, short posts on the beams carry the ridge and purlins; between them, strongly curved rafters rest on a heavy longitudinal beam. The bent timbers are used in their natural shape, and they carry much of the weight of that heavy tiled roof.

Visiting

Of all ten buildings, the Mizote Family Residence Nagayamon Gate is the easiest to see: it faces the road on the east side. The namako-kabe band, the bracketed eaves and the tiled hip-and-gable roof can all be taken in from in front of the gate.

It is the entrance to a private home, so do not walk through it. Keep clear of traffic if you stop, and avoid photographing through the gate into the grounds.