In front of you is one of the nine outer gates of the Kyoto Imperial Garden. Its official name is Shinzaike-gomon, but everyone calls it Hamaguri-gomon, “the Clam Gate”.

1A clam in the fire

According to the traditional explanation, this gate was always kept shut and only opened during a great fire, just as a clam opens in the heat. Sources disagree about which fire it was: some say the fire of 1708, others the great fire of 1788, and some point to an even earlier one.

2The battle at the gate

What is documented is what happened on 20 August 1864. Samurai from the Chōshū domain, expelled from Kyoto the year before, tried to regain their influence over the court by force. Here they clashed with troops from Aizu and Satsuma, who were defending the palace. Chōshū was beaten, but the fighting started a fire that swept through much of the city for days. Kyoto people remembered it as the “dondon fire”, after the boom of the cannon.

That clash, known as the Kinmon or Hamaguri-gomon Incident, turned Chōshū into an open enemy of the shogunate. A few years later, Chōshū and Satsuma joined forces and brought it down.

The gate is not quite where it stood in 1864: it was moved about thirty metres when the park was remodelled between 1877 and 1883.

3What to look for

  • The bullet marks on the pillars and beams, attributed to the 1864 battle.
  • The dome-shaped iron studs on the doors.
  • The information board, with a summary of the incident.
Close-up of a Hamaguri-gomon pillar with iron studs and marks in the wood
The marks on the pillars are attributed to the gunfire of the 1864 battle.

Documented

On 20 August 1864 fighting took place at this gate during the Kinmon Incident, and the gate was moved during the remodelling of the Imperial Garden (1877–1883).

Oral tradition

The origin of the nickname, a closed gate that only opened in the heat of a fire, is a traditional explanation, and it is not known for certain which fire is meant.

Sources and credits

Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Kyōto Gyoen National Garden; Marius B. Jansen, “The Making of Modern Japan” (2000); Conrad Totman, “The Collapse of the Tokugawa Bakufu, 1862–1868” (1980).

Photos:

  • The Hamaguri-gomon, a dark wooden gate with a tiled roof, in the Kyoto Imperial Garden: Saigen Jiro, CC0.
  • Close-up of a Hamaguri-gomon pillar with iron studs and marks in the wood: Takuan~jawiki, CC BY-SA 3.0.

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