A Gate Built for a Temple That Had Already Gone
The Former Rokusho Family Gate and Fence (旧六所家門及び塀, Kyū Rokusho-ke Mon Oyobi Hei) is a wooden gate with flanking fences in Imaizumi 8-chōme, Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture, built in the middle Meiji period between 1883 and 1897 and entered on Japan's national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 27 October 2017. The gate has a frontage of 6.7 metres and the fence runs a total of 43 metres. Fuji City owns both.
Those measurements are the first clue that something is unusual here. A gate almost seven metres across, with forty-three metres of tiled fence extending either side, is the entrance of an institution. It is not the scale a private household normally builds.
The explanation lies in what stood on this ground before. The Rokusho family were the hereditary heads of Tōsen'in (東泉院), a Shingon Buddhist temple on the southern flank of Mount Fuji, until the Meiji government's separation of Buddhism and Shinto forced them to return to lay life. The family kept the site. The temple did not survive.
Tōsen'in and the Break of 1868
Tōsen'in was one of the influential esoteric Buddhist establishments of the Gannan region south of Mount Fuji, active into the early Meiji period and connected to Fuji shugendō, the mountain ascetic tradition. Its collection of documents and objects is now designated by Fuji City as a tangible cultural property in the historical materials category.
The separation edicts of 1868 dismantled the institutional fusion of Buddhism and Shinto that had organised Japanese religious life for a millennium. Temple-shrine complexes were split, Buddhist clergy attached to shrines were required to secularise, and thousands of temples closed. The head of Tōsen'in returned to lay status and the household took the surname Rokusho. Fuji City's museum has built an exhibition around Rokusho Ryōyū (六所良邑), who died on 23 October 1886, using his life to trace how a provincial religious house navigated the upheaval.
The dating of the gate matters against that background. Construction between 1883 and 1897 places it after the temple's dissolution, not before. What a visitor looks at is a private family's entrance, built at the scale of the institution the family used to be.
The Structure Itself
The gate stands at the centre of the site's southern boundary, raised on a flight of stone steps, so the approach is upward. It is a three-bay yakuimon, a gate type with two main posts and two supporting posts set behind them, distributing the weight of the roof so that the central opening can be wide and unobstructed. The form dates to the late Kamakura or early Muromachi period and belongs to the middle of the formal hierarchy: below the munemon and the karamon, above the plain hiramon and kabukimon.
The roof is gabled and laid in pantiles, and the front carries a dashigeta, a projecting purlin that pushes the eaves outward and deepens the shadow across the facade. The central bay holds double-leaf plank doors. In the western bay sits a kugurido, a small wicket door for everyday use, which is the detail that tells you the main doors were opened only when the occasion called for it.
The walls are plastered, with notched-batten weatherboarding (sasarako shitamiita) running up to waist height. The fences to either side rise from stone retaining walls and are boarded vertically. Stone below, timber above, tile on top: three materials, each doing what it does best, and the whole line reading as a single continuous edge from the street.
Visiting
The gate and fence are exterior structures on a street frontage, which is what makes them worth the detour. Both can be seen from the public road without arrangement, and the elevated position on the stone steps means the gate reads clearly from a distance. Fuji City has not published opening hours, admission fees or interior access for the site, so treat this as a place to look at from outside.
A short distance away in the same precinct stands the Former Tōsen'in Treasure House, separately registered, a two-storey plastered storehouse of 7.3 by 4.5 metres with namako plasterwork on its lower southern wall. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as the sole surviving structure of Tōsen'in connected with Fuji shugendō. Seeing the two together in one walk gives the fuller picture: the storehouse from the temple, the gate from the household that replaced it.
Anyone who wants the story rather than the fabric should go to the Fujisan Kaguyahime Museum, the Fuji City Museum, in Hiromi Park at Denbō. Admission is free, the permanent displays cover Tōsen'in among the region's history, and the museum has mounted exhibitions specifically on the Rokusho family and the Meiji transition. It is a different part of the city from Imaizumi, so plan the two as separate stops.
Fuji City itself sits on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen at Shin-Fuji Station, with Fuji Station on the JR Tōkaidō Line closer to the centre.
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Q&A
- Can you visit the Former Rokusho Family Gate and Fence in Fuji City?
- The gate and fence face the street and can be viewed from the public road at any time. Fuji City, which owns them, has not published opening hours, an admission fee or arrangements for entering the site, so plan on an exterior visit only.
- Who were the Rokusho family of the Former Rokusho Family Gate and Fence?
- They were the hereditary heads of Tōsen'in, a Shingon Buddhist temple in what is now Imaizumi 8-chōme, Fuji City. The Meiji government's separation of Buddhism and Shinto required them to return to lay life, after which the household continued on the same site under the Rokusho name. Fuji City has designated the family's Tōsen'in-related documents as a cultural property in the historical materials category.
- What is a yakuimon, the gate type used at the Former Rokusho Family Gate?
- A yakuimon has two main posts with two supporting posts set behind them, which spreads the roof load and allows a wide unobstructed central opening. It appears from the late Kamakura or early Muromachi period and ranks in the middle of the formal gate hierarchy. The Rokusho gate is a three-bay example with a frontage of 6.7 metres, double plank doors in the central bay and a wicket door in the western bay.
- When were the Former Rokusho Family Gate and Fence built and registered?
- The national database dates them to the middle Meiji period, between 1883 and 1897, which places construction after the temple's dissolution. Registration as a Tangible Cultural Property took effect on 27 October 2017 under registration number 22-243, in the eighty-eighth registration round.
- What else can you see near the Former Rokusho Family Gate and Fence?
- The Former Tōsen'in Treasure House stands in the same precinct and is separately registered, a plastered two-storey storehouse described by the Agency for Cultural Affairs as the only surviving Tōsen'in structure connected with Fuji shugendō. For the historical background, the Fujisan Kaguyahime Museum at Hiromi Park in Denbō displays material on Tōsen'in and admits visitors free of charge.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Rokusho Family Gate and Fence (旧六所家門及び塀, Kyū Rokusho-ke Mon Oyobi Hei) |
|---|---|
| Location | Imaizumi 8-chōme 1428-1 and others, Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration no. 22-243 |
| Year Designated | Registered and gazetted 27 October 2017 |
| Quantity | 1 structure |
| Dimensions | Gate: wooden, tiled roof, frontage 6.7 m. Fence: wooden, tiled roof, total length 43 m. Built 1883 to 1897 |
| Owner | Fuji City |
| Public Access | Exterior visible from the public road. No published opening hours, admission fee or site access |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Former Rokusho Family Gate and Fence
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00011961
- Cultural Heritage Online: Former Rokusho Family Gate and Fence
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/366814
- Cultural Heritage Online: cultural properties of Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/region/22/22210
- Fujisan Kaguyahime Museum: exhibition on Tōsen'in and the Meiji Restoration
- https://museum.city.fuji.shizuoka.jp/event/detail/234
- Fuji City: Introduction to Cultural Properties
- https://www.city.fuji.shizuoka.jp/kanko/rekishi/bunkazai/index.html
Last verified: 2026.08.13