Ohashi Saryo Middle Gate

Ohashi Saryo Middle Gate, a One-Metre Gate in the Garden

Ohashi Saryo Middle Gate (大橋茶寮中門, Ōhashi Saryō Chūmon) is a gate built around 1949 at the Ohashi Saryo tea house, 5-6-6 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 3 August 2006.

It stands in the central garden, a Munamon ridged gate with an opening 1 metre wide, timber-built under a roof of cedar bark.

Of the three gates at Ohashi Saryo, it is the only one that does not face the street.

The Gate That Ties the Tea Rooms Together

Ohashi Saryo Middle Gate was registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as the gate for passing between the tea rooms, showing a calm sukiya design and binding the rooms together.

In a tea garden, a middle gate commonly divides the outer garden from the inner one; guests pass through it on their way to the tea room.

At Ohashi Saryo the tea rooms are ranged round a central garden, so a gate at its centre becomes the pivot for every route to them.

Cedar Bark and Slender Braced Posts

The roof of Ohashi Saryo Middle Gate is gabled and covered in Sugikawabuki, sheets of cedar bark held down with bamboo: far lighter than tile or metal.

Posts and beams are slender logs, and each post is set up with a splint, a secondary piece fixed alongside to steady it.

At 1 metre, the opening admits one person at a time. The front gate is 2.7 metres wide and the Furo gate 1.5; this is the narrowest of the three.

Thin timbers and a light roof keep the gate unassertive among the garden trees.

Visiting Ohashi Saryo Middle Gate

Ohashi Saryo Middle Gate stands inside the garden and cannot be seen from outside.

You pass through it only when attending a tea gathering at Ohashi Saryo. It lies on the way to the tea rooms, so the bark roof, bamboo battens and braced posts can be seen at close range.

No published photography policy was found; follow the host's instructions on the day.

Directions and general visiting conditions are on the Ohashi Saryo page.