Ueminami Family Residence Nagayamon Gate

About the Ueminami Family Residence Nagayamon Gate

The Ueminami Family Residence Nagayamon Gate (上南家住宅長屋門, Ueminami-ke Jūtaku Nagayamon) is a single-story wooden gatehouse built in the late Edo period in Tani, Kimino Town, Wakayama Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2019.

A Nagayamon is a long building with a gateway cut through it and rooms strung along the rest of its length. This one stands at the southern corner of the Ueminami estate, faces south, and covers a building area of 78 square meters. The gateway is at the east end, with the rooms running west from it under a roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles. The two ends of the roof differ: the east end is a plain Kirizuma-zukuri gable, while the west end is finished in the Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable form.

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the room at the west end has its doorway on the back wall, and on the front it has a projecting section with the roof carried down over it.

Why the Ueminami Nagayamon Gate was registered

The Ueminami Nagayamon Gate was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs sees it as forming the traditional front of a farm household in the mountains of the Kishi River basin, the side of the estate that meets the visitor first.

No record gives a construction date for the Ueminami Family Residence Nagayamon Gate. The Wakayama Prefectural Board of Education puts it in the late Edo period, judging from its form and from the traditional hand-forged nails in its board walls. The national database gives a range of 1751 to 1830.

The roof was originally Kayabuki thatch and was re-covered in tile within a decade of the end of the Second World War. The national database also records further alterations in the mid-Shōwa period.

What to look for in the Ueminami Nagayamon Gate

The Ueminami Nagayamon Gate was the household's kitchen as well as its gateway. The prefectural board describes a cow shed just west of the gateway, a cooking area beyond it, and a bath and a storeroom at the far west end. The Agency for Cultural Affairs adds that the interior was originally an earth-floored Doma used for cooking and for keeping cattle.

There was no cooking space inside the main house, so the prefecture treats the gate and the main house as a single living unit. Step through the gate and the cattle were right beside you, with the cooking fire in the next bay. The daily routine of a mountain farm was laid out in order along one long building.

The prefecture also notes that a gate room once jutted out over the cliff at the edge of the plot. Its foundations deteriorated, and that part was taken down in recent years, so the Ueminami Family Residence Nagayamon Gate you see today stands without it.

From outside, compare the two ends of the roof: a simple gable over the gateway at the east, a hip-and-gable at the west.

Visiting the Ueminami Family Residence Nagayamon Gate

The Ueminami Family Residence Nagayamon Gate is privately owned, and the Ueminami estate now operates as a guesthouse that takes one party at a time. We found no notice that the inside of the gate is open to visitors.

No photography policy is published, so ask the hosts during your stay. Directions to the estate and details of staying there are on the Ueminami Family Residence page.