Shukkeien Garden

Shukkeien is a garden in the centre of Hiroshima, begun in 1620 for the lord of the domain and open to the public today. It has been a Place of Scenic Beauty, a national designation, since 1940.

Asano Nagaakira entered Hiroshima Castle in 1619 as the first Asano lord of the domain, and began the garden the next year as the grounds of a villa. It was laid out by Ueda Soko, one of his senior retainers and a tea master in the line of Sen no Rikyu. Later lords added to it, and it took roughly its present form under them.

The garden was first known as Osensui or Sentei. The name Shukkeien is traced to a poem written for the second lord by the scholar Hayashi Razan, whose preface describes sea and mountain drawn small into one piece of ground and the scenery gathered into a single pavilion. Another account has the garden modelled on West Lake in China, reduced in scale.

Fire destroyed many of its buildings in 1758, and a long rebuilding followed from 1783. The Asano family gave the garden to Hiroshima Prefecture in 1940. Five years later the atomic bomb left it in ruins. Work to restore it began in 1949 and took about thirty years.

Paths run around a pond called Takueichi, which holds a number of small islands, two of them named for the crane and the tortoise, the creatures of long life.

Cherry and peach flower in spring, the maples turn in autumn, and plum and camellia come in winter. The garden is lit at night during the cherry and maple seasons. Tea gatherings are held through the year and are open to anyone.