Sankeien Garden: A Selfless Benefactor’s Gift to Yokohama

A view across the main pond of the three-story pagoda of now defunct temple Tōmyōji, an important national cultural property, standing atop a hill. Symbol of Sankeien, it is the oldest structure in the garden.

The inner garden, once the private preserve of Sankeien founder Hara Sankei. The portion opened to the public in his lifetime is called the outer garden. Rinshunkaku is the central attraction of the Inner Garden.

A view of Suminoe no Ma, Rinshunkaku’s principal chamber, seen from the Naniwa no Ma antechamber. The rooms are filled with valuable art, from the paintings on the fusuma to the transom carvings, executed by famed Kanō school artists.

On display at the Sankei Memorial are artworks owned by Hara, documentation about his life, and Kanō school fusuma paintings originally from Rinshunkaku.

Beyond the outer garden’s lotus pond stands Kakushōkaku, formerly the Hara family’s private residence. The current building, designated a cultural asset of Yokohama, is a reconstruction of the original structure.

The last structure to be relocated to Sankeien, in 1922, was the Chōshūkaku. This was the residence of Kasuga no Tsubone, wet nurse to third Tokugawa shōgun Iemitsu, and originally stood on the grounds of Kyoto’s Nijō Castle. Constructed in the rōkaku architectural style originating in China, it features two-story, square construction and is designated an important national cultural property.

The view from a room in Rinshunkaku’s third pavilion. The pagoda in the distance blends harmoniously with the pond and the greenery.

A covered span modeled after the Kangetsudai bridge at Kyoto temple Kōdaiji. The Jutō Ōidō Hall can be seen from the Naniwa no Ma.

The Jutō Ōidō Hall of defunct temple Tenzuiji is an important national cultural property standing southeast of the covered bridge. Toyotomi Hideyoshi had it erected at Kyoto’s Daitokuji temple in 1597.

A climb up the hill offers a good view of the Tōmyōji pagoda.

Near the pagoda, a plaque is all that remains of Shōfūkaku, destroyed in the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake.

Hakuuntei, the residence where Hara passed away. The structure is a tangible cultural property of the city of Yokohama.

The Gomon Gate to the Inner Garden, a tangible cultural property of the city of Yokohama, was moved here from Kyoto’s Saihōji in the eighteenth century.

The Sankeien Saryō tea house (open 11:00 am to 3:30 pm) sells delicious hand-grilled dumplings.

The “Sankeiwan” set, a bowl of soba, prawn tempura, and grated daikon topped with wakame, will set a diner back ¥1,200, while the hand-grilled dango start from ¥150.

Sankeien’s main entrance.