Sankeien Garden

Hara Tomitaro made a fortune in raw silk and spent a good deal of it, between 1902 and the 1920s, buying historic buildings that were being lost as their owners could no longer maintain them, dismantling them and re-erecting them in a garden he laid out at Honmoku on the edge of Yokohama. Seventeen structures stand there, ten of them designated important cultural properties, including a three-storey pagoda of 1457 from Kyoto that crowns the hill, a farmhouse from the Gassho villages of Gifu, a Rinshunkaku villa built for a branch of the Tokugawa in 1649, and teahouses. The garden was opened to the public in 1906, free of charge, while Hara was still living there. It is arranged as a strolling garden around ponds with the buildings placed as incidents on the walk, and the effect is a collection that reads as a landscape rather than as a museum.

What you actually see

• Seventeen relocated buildings - bought, dismantled and re-erected between 1902 and the 1920s.
• The 1457 pagoda - a three-storey Kyoto structure standing on the garden's hill.
• A Gassho farmhouse - a steep-thatched house from the mountains of Gifu.
• A strolling layout - ponds and paths that make a collection read as landscape.

When to go

Late March to April for blossom, November for maples. Two to three hours.

Honest expectations

It is a long way from Yokohama station and buses are slow. Interiors of most buildings are viewed from outside only, with occasional special openings. Entry is charged and closing is at five. Summer is hot and the ponds are still.

Nearby

Yokohama's Minato Mirai waterfront is north-west; Chinatown is between them.