is a

Japanese garden are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden desig ...

located in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Founded in 1877, the garden is rich in historic remains and artifacts. The garden is part of the Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo property and can be accessed by walking from Edogawabashi Station.

History

In the 1600s,

Matsuo Bashō ; born , later known as was the most famous Japanese poet of the Edo period. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative '' haikai no renga'' form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as th ...

, a renowned haiku poet of the Edo period, lived in a hut overlooking this property for four years. In the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

the estate owner and well-known statesman Prince Aritomo Yamagata built his mansion here and named it "Chinzan-so" or "House of Camellia" after the numerous

camellia ''Camellia'' (pronounced or ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in tropical and subtropical areas in East Asia, eastern and South Asia, southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are ...

flowers that blossomed here; he made use of the undulating topography of the mansion grounds to its best advantage. The Prince hosted many important political meetings here. Records say that the

Emperor Meiji , posthumously honored as , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the List of emperors of Japan, traditional order of succession, reigning from 1867 until his death in 1912. His reign is associated with the Meiji Restoration of 1868, which ...

held a number of important conferences with his high-ranking dignitaries at the "House of Camellia".

Historical Artifacts

When the property passed on to Baron Heitaro Fujita, he decorated the grounds with historical monuments from all over

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, especially

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

and Toba. A thousand-year-old

pagoda A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist, but some ...

was transferred here from the Hiroshima mountains. This three-story pagoda was built by the Chikurin-ji temple monks without using a single nail. The Shiratama Inari Shrine in the center of the garden was removed from the grounds of Shimogamo in

in 1924. Other cultural treasures scattered throughout the site include carved

Taoist Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ...

and

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

images and over thirty

stone lantern are a type of traditional East Asian lantern made of stone, wood, or metal. Originating in China, stone lanterns spread to Japan, Korea and Vietnam, though they are most commonly found in both China – extant in Buddhist temples and traditional ...

s. A large

pond A pond is a small, still, land-based body of water formed by pooling inside a depression (geology), depression, either naturally or artificiality, artificially. A pond is smaller than a lake and there are no official criteria distinguishing ...

waterfall A waterfall is any point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in seve ...

, and natural

spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season), a season of the year * Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy * Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water * Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a he ...

are also part of the garden, as is a 500-year-old sacred tree that measures 4.5 m around its base.

Gallery

References

External links

Bunkyo City Information

{{Authority control Bunkyō Gardens in Japan Gardens in Tokyo 1877 establishments in Japan Buildings and structures in Japan destroyed during World War II