Ibaraki · MitoNo.1154★★Open in map →
Kodokan Mito Domain School
The school of the Mito domain, set on the outer enclosure of the castle and built to be the largest of its kind in Japan. Its main hall, inner rooms and main gate still stand, a few minutes on foot from Mito Station.
- FromTokyo Stn
- ~1 hr 30 min8 min walk from Mito Stn
- Get off atMito Station (JR Joban Line)
- On foot
- Kodokan Mito Domain School
The sweet spot
Mito's famous name is Kairakuen, and the garden takes most of the day-trip traffic. Kodokan is quieter by default: nearer the station, less photographed, and carrying the explanation of what the garden was for. Weekday mornings here are unhurried.
Where it is
13 more notes in Ibaraki · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Main gatethe black timber gate on the approach, one of three Important Cultural Properties here
- Seicho main hallthe school's administrative hall, its tatami rooms opening onto bare gravel
- Taishijo courtyardthe open ground where martial tests were watched from the hall's front room
- Shizendo inner hallthe rear rooms where the last shogun withdrew after the shogunate ended
- Plum groveabout 800 trees of some 60 varieties, planted around the halls
How to actually get there
- Tokyo Station → Mito Station (JR Joban Line Limited Express Hitachi or Tokiwa).
- Mito Station north exit → Kodokan (about eight minutes on foot up Icho-zaka, or three minutes on the Kairakuen-bound bus).
- Enter at the main gate, then take the main hall, the courtyard and the inner rooms in that order.
- Add Kairakuen by bus from Mito Station if you have the afternoon.
- JR Joban Line limited express from Tokyo
- Tokyo Station →(JR Joban Line Limited Express Hitachi or Tokiwa, about 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes)→ Mito Station. Leave by the north exit, cross the pedestrian deck, drop to street level and climb the Icho-zaka slope past Sannomaru Elementary School; the gate is about eight minutes away. Local Joban Line trains also reach Mito without a limited-express supplement, but take considerably longer.
- Return from Mito Station
- Walk back down to Mito Station's north exit. Limited express services to Tokyo run into the evening but thin out after dark, and the last one departs well before midnight. If you have added Kairakuen to the same day, check the board before you commit to a late bus back from the garden.
About the place
Kodokan occupies the Sannomaru, the outer enclosure of Mito Castle, a few minutes uphill from the station. It was the school of the Mito domain, and at its fullest the grounds ran to about 10.5 hectares — larger, its own records and the city's guides agree, than any other domain school in the country. Letters, swordsmanship, gunnery, astronomy and medicine were all taught on the one site, in separate halls that students moved between. Most of that campus is gone. What remains is its administrative core, the ground the tests were held on, and a plum grove.
How to enjoy it
Doors open at 9:00, with closing at 17:00 in the warmer half of the year and 16:30 from October; the site shuts for a few days at the New Year. An hour covers the buildings, two if the plums are out. Kairakuen was built as this school's other half and sits a short bus ride west, so the pair makes one unhurried day.
Background & history
Tokugawa Nariaki, ninth lord of Mito, founded the school in 1841, and it was fully opened in 1857. Learning and martial training were taught as one thing, and the arguments worked out on this ground fed straight into the politics that ended the shogunate. In 1868 the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, a pupil here as a boy, spent four months in seclusion in the inner hall, and fighting between domain factions burned most of the campus in the same year. The three surviving buildings are Important Cultural Properties, the site is a Special Historic Site, and it was written into a Japan Heritage story in 2015.
Before you go
- Cash
- Admission was listed at 420 yen for adults and 210 yen for schoolchildren and visitors aged 70 and over when checked. The ticket window is small, so carry cash. The free car park holds only a handful of vehicles, and the prefectural Sannomaru building's paid car park next door is the usual overflow.
- Before you go
- The site closes for a few days at the New Year and shuts earlier from October through the winter. The grounds are open gravel with little shelter from rain. The plum grove, which is why many people come, only flowers towards the end of winter.
- Another way
- From stop 4 at Mito Station's north exit, the Kairakuen-bound city bus reaches the school in about three minutes — useful in rain, or if you are chaining the school and the garden in either direction.
- After you get off
- At Mito Station take the north exit, cross the pedestrian deck, go down to street level and climb the Icho-zaka slope. The white plaster wall and black gate are on the left, past Sannomaru Elementary School.