Mito Edo mansion

• Japanese: 江戸水戸藩邸 (Edo Mito hantei)

Mito han maintained at least two mansions in Edo, one in Koishikawa and one in Komagome.

The Koishikawa mansion was home to a series of gardens, begun by Tokugawa Yorifusa in 1629 and completed by his son Tokugawa Mitsukuni in 1669, named "Kôrakuen" by Chinese scholar & Mito retainer Zhu Shunsui.

In 1844, Tokugawa Nariaki fell out of favor with the shogun & with the rôjû, and relocated himself, his family, and a number of their attendants and retainers, from the Koishikawa mansion to the one at Komagome. The main building of the Komagome mansion was destroyed in a fire in 1853, and much of the compound was severely damaged, along with much of the city, in the 1855 Ansei Earthquake.

The former site of the Koishikawa Mito mansion is today the location of the Tokyo Dome, home of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team, though the gardens have been maintained (or reconstructed) and are open to the public today.

References

• Anne Walthall, "Nishimiya Hide: Turning Palace Arts into Marketable Skills," in Walthall (ed.), The Human Tradition in Modern Japan," Scholarly Resources, Inc. (2002), 45-60.