In a castle town of the former Tsuwano Domain, this garden was created in the residential area for the townspeople which prospered from the end of the Edo Period to the mid Meiji Era. It is in a style of Tori garden in which visitors can go through the garden from the front entrance to the back door. Although it is small, there is a courtyard, which shows some depth, along the veranda which connects the parlor to the warehouse in the middle. This garden demonstrates the development of the landscaping culture in the modern Tsuwano.
cultural property : registered monuments
type : registered monuments
ro213 Ushiroda, Tsuwano-chō, Kanoashi-gun, Shimane-ken 699-5605
Tel：0856-72-0005
Okazaki Garden is one of about 20 residential gardens for the townspeople which remains until today in a castle town of the former Tsuwano Domain. The Okazaki Family was a purveyor to the Government founded in 1854 who dealt with fabrics made from cotton and flax, odd things and knickknacks. They built a house with a storefront under the name Sasaya, about half-way down the Honmachi street in the center of the castle town. The garden encloses the south and east of the building and its corner is at right angles. The south part of the house consists of the room where the family Buddhist altar is situated and the main parlor. The east part is the parlor in the warehouse. The landscape continues to the south of the veranda which is connected to the back parlor. It seems that the garden came to its current state after being renovated due to the great fire of 1853, although an actual date of landscaping is unknown.
There is a dry waterfall with stones in a narrow strip of space between the adjacent pond and the wall, and to the south of that dry waterfall, there is also a Tsukiyama (artificial hill) with stone arrangements, pine and Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) trees. The artificial hill gets gradually higher as it goes to the back and there is a variation on the scenery due to the large standing stone and ornamental stones. The view of the dry stream and the artificial hill will unfold as visitors walk towards the veranda and their designs and appearances are full of ideas to make the small space look larger.