Nabeshima Mansion Garden

 

The Nabeshima mansion was a high-ranking samurais residence and administrative outpost of the Nabeshima Clan who ruled what is now Saga during the Edo Period.

The mansion and surrounding district of samurai residences is located on the north side of the Shimbara Peninsula in Nagasaki.

The Nabeshima house and surrounding samurai district is a historical preservation district, though the Nabeshima mansion is the only property open to the public

When the mansion was built in the late 17th century it had a pond-type garden, but in the early 20th century the garden was renovated and the pond was removed and the garden turned into a dry, karesansui, stroll-type garden.

The steep slope is landscaped in quite, for my untrained eye, an unusual way.

The stepping stones also seem to be larger than usual....

I visited in mid-February so plums were in blossom, including a fine weeping plum shown in the first photo. I imagine that later when the azaleas are blooming would also be a good time to view the garden.

A path does lead up to the high ground where you can look down on the garden, mansion, and surrounding area and on clear days as far as Mount Unzen.

Remnants of the pond can still be seen.

The previous post in the series was on the Nabeshima Mansion itself and includes photos of the gardens in front of the property.

Nabeshima Mansion

 

The Nabeshima Mansion was a big property around which is the Kojirokuji Samurai District in Kumini on the coast of the Shimbara Peninsula.

It has one of the biggest Nagayamon I have ever seen. In essence a long gatehouse, they were often where guards and servants of big mansions lived.

The cluster of different connected buildings were built at different times between the Edo Period and the early twentieth century.

Looking at an old map shows that this area was part of three, small pieces of "territory" controlled by the Nabeshima domain, but geographically within the Shimbara Peninsula, controlled by Shimbara Domain, so the surrounding little samurai district and the Nabeshima mansion were kind of an outpost.

Maps of Japan at the time show all kinds of complicated "islands" of territories geographically within domains, but I have no idea how this came about in this instance.

When I visited the house was closed to the public for renovations, but I believe it is now open.

However, the property has some fine gardens and grounds including a cherry tree that brings visitors to photograph its early blossoms. I will cover the garden next...

The previous post was on the Preservation District the mansion is part of.

Kojiro-kuji Samurai District

 

Kunimi Town on the Ariake Sea coast in the northern part of the Shimbara Peninsula is home to a small, little-known, samurai district registered as a Historic Preservation District.

Samurai districts tended mostly to be adjacent to castles, but sometimes, like here, they were established as kind of fortified villages some distance from the castle town. In Kyushu, the ones at Kaseda and at Chiran were quite similar.

This one belonged to the Nabeshima Clan whose headquarters were quite a distance away in Saga. Here in Kujiro they established a jinya , a mansion, in the mid Edo Period near where a castle had stood until being demolished in the early Edo Period.

The Nabeshima mansion is an impressive property which I will cover in the next post. There was little in the way of interesting architecture other than the mansion.

What does remain, and what was deemed worthy of preserving, was the layout of the streets with their canals, stone walls, and hedges. Interestingly all the power cables in the area had been buried which helped in imaging how it looked centuries ago. There is a local history museum nearby where you can see displays connected to the area and pick up a map.

The previous post on this series on day 61 of my Kyushu Pilgrimage was on the two shrines at the castle site on the hill behind the samurai district.

Other than the two samurai districts mentioned above, on this pilgrimage, I also visited samurai districts in the castle town of Kitsuki and the castle town of Obi.

Hizen Hamashuku Thatched Roof Townscape

 

Hizen Hamashuku, now a part of Kashima City in Saga, lies along the Hama River. On the north bank of the river, along what was in the Edo Period a fairly main highway, is a historic preservation district, Sakagura Street, with many historic buildings and numerous sake breweries.

However, on the south bank of the river, a little closer to the mouth where it enters the Ariake Sea, is another small preservation district, known as a "thatched roof townscape".

Many of these preservation districts consist of preserved buildings of wealthy merchants or high-class samurai, but here was a more "working class" neighborhood with much smaller homes.

In a maze of narrow lanes lived carpenters, blacksmiths, sailors, fishermen, and merchants.

A cluster of three small homes that belonged to the Ikeda, Nakamura, and Nakajima families, have been renovated and offer a fairly unique opportunity to see some smaller, traditional buildings.

When i visited first in 2016 the houses were open and free to enter. When I went back a couple of years ago they were closed up.

There are several other thatched properties, some larger, and on my last visit I noticed lots of water hoses on top of tall posts, ready to water down the rooves in case of fire.

Unlike many of these preservation districts, there are no cafes, souvenir shops, etc, it is still just a funky, lower-class residential area, and therefore in many ways actually more authentic.

It is a short walk from the Sakakura Sake District and just a few minutes from Hizenhama JR railway station.

This was the last stop of my tour of Kashima on day 59 of my walk around Kyushu and from here I headed off down the coast.

The previous post in the series was the samurai residence nearby. Other Preservation Districts I've recently covered include Mima on Shikoku, and Tsuyama in Okayama.

Hizen Hamashuku Former Samurai Residence

 

Hidden among the maze of small alleys around Sakagura Street in Hizen Hamasuku, Kashima, is a well-preserved example of a former samurai home that is open to the public.

It is quite a substantial 2-storeyed structure with a thatched roof and is believed to have been built in the early 19th century.

It differs from most of the other samurai residences I have posted on, like the one in Matsue, or the one in Izushi, in that it is not within a samurai quarter of a castle town, but rather is set among residences of farmers.

Evidence from the interior arrangements suggests that this samurai family was engaged in silkworm production and farming, activities officially "beneath" those of the samurai class.

There was a certain amount of "class" turmoil by the 19th century as many impoverished samurai gave up their statues to become farmers or even merchants, and many rich merchants and farmers being given trappings of samurai statues like family names and permission to wear swords.

The thatched roof of this property is U-shaped, a local style known as Kudo-Zukuri. Like with many such sites in Japan off the main tourist track, entry is free.

The previous post was on the nearby Hizen Hamashuku Sakagura Street Preservation District.

Hizen Hamashuku Sakagura Street Preservation District

 

Along the banks of the Hama River in the southern part of what is now Kashima City in Saga Prefecture in Kyushu, Hizen Hamashuku was a town that grew up along the Tara Kaido, a branch of the Nagasaki Kaido.

The area around a 600-meter-long section of the old road is named Sakagura Street and is now a registered preservation district of traditional architecture.

Among the traditional stores and homes are three surviving sake breweries from among the thirteen that originally dominated the area.

Touring the traditional sake breweries and sampling the many varieties still produced here is now the many attraction that draws tourists from far and wide.

In combination with 3 other sake breweries in Kashima, including one near the famous Yutoku Inari Shrine, major sake festivals are held in the Spring and Autumn.

I am not a big fan of sake, so for me the area was of more interest because of the traditional architecture.

Other than the sake breweries there are souvenir shops, cafes, and eateries,

Sakagura Street is just a few minutes walk from Hizenham JR Station.

Just off the main street is an old, thatched, former samurai residence that I will cover next post.

The previous post in this series chronicling day 59 of my Kyushu walk was the nearby Yutoku Inari Shrine.