Gankaen

What Is Gankaen?

Gankaen (巖華園, Gankaen) is the estate of the Nakajima family in Tsukiya-cho, Ashikaga City, Tochigi Prefecture, whose late Edo-period compound includes seven buildings registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2005 and a garden registered as a Registered Monument in 2007.

The property sits at the mouth of a valley north of central Ashikaga, on the old route from the Ashikaga Gakko school toward the mountain temple of Gyodosan Joinji. Along its western edge the hillside breaks through the soil as bare chert bedrock, and the garden builds its artificial hill directly on that rock. The name is usually read as "flowering crag," a description of those rock forms. Local tradition adds a second layer: the painter and scholar Watanabe Kazan is said to have taken the character for rock from the old place name Iwahana and paired it with the "ka" of his own art name.

Gankaen is still a working inn and restaurant. Most of the registered buildings serve as guest rooms, a lounge or meeting space, so the heritage here is experienced from the inside, as part of an ordinary stay or meal, rather than behind a rope.

The Nakajima Family and Their Literary Guests

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Nakajima family traces its line to the Minamoto branch of the Ashikaga clan. In 1597 a certain Ashikaga Yoshihisa took the name Nakajima Shuzen and became the first head of the house. By the time of the tenth head, Kyuzo, who died in 1881, the layout of buildings you see today was essentially complete, as old estate plans confirm.

Family tradition holds that the Nakajima served as financial agents for the Matsugaoka Gosho, the Tokeiji convent in Kamakura, and so stood outside direct shogunate control. That status is said to explain why dissident scholars such as Watanabe Kazan and Takano Choei found shelter here. The same tradition credits the garden to the painter Tani Buncho and his circle, with Kazan supplying the name.

From the Meiji era into the early Showa years, Gankaen served as a salon for writers and artists from Tokyo. After the Second World War it reopened as a private social club, the Gankaen Club, and later became an inn. Ashikaga City lists Dan Kazuo, Sakaguchi Ango and Takeda Taijun among the novelists who stayed to write, followed in more recent decades by Tanabe Seiko, Domon Fuyuji and Uchidate Makiko.

How Gankaen Is Laid Out

Gankaen faces east. The front gate opens at the middle of the eastern boundary, with side walls running north and south; the southern wall joins the former stable. Through the gate, the main house stands in the center of the plot, facing you.

Using the main house as your anchor, the rest falls into place:

• Along the eastern wall to your left stand the Kojitei, a converted outer storehouse at the southeast corner, and the former stable that runs north from its gable end.
• Behind the main house to the west are two storehouses: the smaller storehouse at the western edge and the New Storehouse just north of it.
• North of the main house is the guesthouse, a former study wing that was once attached to the back of the main house and was moved to its present spot around 1945.
• The garden climbs the western slope, with a pond at the foot, a waterfall of set stones on the slope and the artificial hill at the top.

The Fuyotei hall to the right of the gate, used for lectures and banquets, is not part of the registration. Of the seven registered buildings, the main house, the Kojitei and the New Storehouse date from the late Edo period, and an ink inscription in the New Storehouse gives the year 1862. The gate, the storehouse, the stable and the study wing are mid-Meiji.

Registered Cultural Properties at Gankaen

All seven buildings at Gankaen were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on February 9, 2005, under consecutive registration numbers 09-0113 to 09-0119, each on the criterion that it contributes to the historic landscape of the country. The garden followed on February 6, 2007, as a Registered Monument in the scenic-beauty category.

The inn's own website and some tourism listings give 2004 for the buildings and 2006 for the garden; the dates on this page follow the Agency for Cultural Affairs database. The individual building pages cover construction and details.

Visiting Gankaen and Getting There

Gankaen is a business, not a public site. The inn asks that all meals and stays be booked by telephone; meals are served to parties of 2 to 100, and overnight stays start at two guests. The official website lists meals from 3,500 yen per person (2,500 yen for groups of 20 or more) and a night with dinner and breakfast at 12,000 yen per person, before tax and service. The Ashikaga tourism association quotes different figures, so confirm when you book.

If you only want to see the buildings and garden, call ahead (0284-41-2338) to ask whether a visit is possible. Tochigi Prefecture's heritage guide describes the main house as viewable from the outside only. This is private property, so follow the staff's guidance on where you may walk and photograph.

The nearest stations are Ashikaga on the JR Ryomo Line and Ashikagashi on the Tobu Isesaki Line. By taxi or car it is about 8 minutes from Ashikaga Station and about 10 minutes from Ashikagashi Station, and about 5 minutes from the Ashikaga interchange of the Kita-Kanto Expressway; free parking holds 60 cars. From Asakusa in Tokyo, the Tobu Ryomo limited express reaches Ashikagashi in about 70 minutes. By bus, take the city's Gyodo Line to the Akamatsudai Koen stop and walk about 10 minutes.