Tojo-tei Residence
licensed photographWiiii / CC BY-SA 3.0

Northwest Chiba · MatsudoNo.938★★Open in map →

Tojo-tei Residence

— The last Tokugawa lord's villa in Matsudo

historyOff the trail — and worth it

A Tokugawa family villa on a hill in Matsudo, where the Meiji rooms and the lawn-and-mound garden both survive and both hold national designations. It sits on the Joban Line, close enough to be a detour rather than a trip.

  1. FromUeno Station
  2. ~30 minJR Joban Line, ~20 min from Ueno
  3. Get off atMatsudo Station (JR Joban Line)
  4. On foot
  5. Tojo-tei Residence
Directions ↗

The sweet spot

Matsudo is a commuter town on the Joban Line, and almost nothing here is set up for overseas visitors. The calm is not because the place is unknown — Japanese visitors come for the plum and the maples — but because it has not yet reached foreign itineraries.

Where it is

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What to look for — in walking order

The thatched gateSuikotei / CC BY-SA 4.0
  1. The thatched gatethe kayabuki-mon at the head of the stone steps into the residence grounds
  2. The entrance wingthe genkan-mune, where guests of the household were formally received
  3. The formal reception wingthe omote-zashiki-mune, the public rooms whose veranda faces the lawn
  4. Former Tokugawa Akitake Gardena wide lawn with low mounds, borrowing the woods behind it as scenery
  5. Tojo Museum of Historythe museum holding the Matsudo Tokugawa and Yoshinobu family collections

How to actually get there

  1. Ueno Station → Matsudo Station (JR Joban Line rapid, about 20 minutes).
  2. Matsudo Station east exit → entrance of Tojogaoka Historical Park (walk about 10 minutes, uphill).
  3. Inside the park, take the residence first, then the garden, then the Tojo Museum of History.
JR Joban Line from Ueno
Ueno Station →(JR Joban Line rapid, about 20 minutes)→ Matsudo Station, then about 10 minutes on foot from the east exit. Rapid and local services both stop here and run through the day, so no timetable planning is needed.
Return from Matsudo Station
Walk back down the hill to Matsudo Station and take the Joban Line toward Ueno, Tokyo or Shinagawa. Through services on the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line also reach Otemachi. The site shuts in the late afternoon, so the return never falls near the last train.
Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Tojo-tei stands on a wooded rise called Tojo-ga-oka, on the Chiba bank of the Edogawa river. Tokugawa Akitake — eleventh head of the Mito Tokugawa house and a younger brother of the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu — built it as a private villa and spent his later years here. The house is timber, single-storey with a part upper floor, and thoroughly Japanese in plan and detail. What lies in front of it is not: a broad lawn with low earth mounds, laid out after Akitake came back from Europe. Yoshinobu himself stayed here more than once. The hill around the house is now open as Tojogaoka Historical Park.

How to enjoy it

The park gate opens at 9:00 and the residence and museum at 9:30, with last entry at 16:30 and closing at 17:00, so a slow start still leaves room for both. Mondays are closed, which catches people who deliberately plan a quiet weekday. Locals come for plum at the end of winter and maples in autumn.

Background & history

Tokugawa Akitake represented the shogunate at the Paris Exposition and stayed on in Europe to study. He completed this villa in 1884, by which time both the Mito domain and the shogunate had gone. The house was designated an Important Cultural Property in 2006, and the garden became a national Place of Scenic Beauty in 2015 under the name Former Tokugawa Akitake Garden. The hill around it opened to the public as a park in 1991.

Before you go

Cash
Admission is charged for the residence and the museum. When checked, a combined ticket for both was 320 yen for adults and 160 yen for high school and university students, and the residence alone was 250 yen; junior high school age and under enter free. Parking on site is free.
Before you go
Closed on Mondays, or the following weekday when a Monday falls on a public holiday, and from 28 December to 4 January. The museum also shuts while exhibitions are being changed over. The approach from the station is a steady climb, and the garden is open lawn with little shade.
Another way
From Tokyo Station, Joban Line trains run through on the Ueno-Tokyo Line and reach Matsudo in about 24 minutes. City buses also leave from both exits of Matsudo Station for the Tojo Rekishi-kan stop, a few minutes below the gate.
After you get off
From the east exit of Matsudo Station, walk about 10 minutes south through the streets and up the slope to the park entrance. The residence stands inside the grounds, past the thatched gate.