Izumo Mansion & Izumo-style Garden

 

The Izumo Mansion was formerly the residence of the Ezumi family, a wealthy farming family of the Izumo region.

Their main house was dismantled and reassembled within the grounds of what is now the Izumo Cultural Heritage Museum, located between downtown Izumo and the Izumo Taisha area.

As well as moving the substantial house, they also moved the very large garden.

The Nagayamon, gatehouse, was also relocated and serves as the entrance to the museum compound.

The garden is very large and is  a dry garden with large areas of white gravel.

It can be viewed from the southern, shoin, room of the mansion.

It was a stroll-type garden, but unfortunately cannot be entered, only viewed from the house.

It is planted mostly with evergreen shrubs and trees, including a lot of black pine.

The arrangement of stepping stones is in the Izumo-style.

The house was originally built in 1896, and all the rooms can be explored.

Next door is a restaurant that offers a different view of the garden.

The Izumo Cultural Heritage Museum has exhibits on Izumo crafts and offers workshops. Two large, modern galleries show interesting temporary exhibits that require an entrance fee. I saw a fantastic exhibition of yokai prints and paintings here. The mansion and gardens are free to enter.

For garden enthusiasts there is an extra bonus here, a replica of a teahouse by Sen no Rikyu once owned by the famed Matsue tea master Fumai, with a series of gardens including one designed by Fumai himself. I will post pictures of that next.

The previous post in this series exploring the delights of Izumo and Matsue was on Jozan Inari Shrine.