Kenroku-en

Kenroku-en lies on a raised plateau just south-east of Kanazawa Castle, in the heart of the city. It grew out of the Renchi-tei, a villa garden laid out in 1676 by Maeda Tsunanori, the fifth lord of Kaga, the richest domain of the Edo period after the shogun's own. Successive lords rebuilt and enlarged it after a great fire in 1759, and in the 1830s and 1840s the twelfth lord, Nariyasu, gave it much of its present form, extending the large pond of Kasumigaike and the streams that feed it.

The name, meaning 'garden combining six', was given in 1822 by the statesman Matsudaira Sadanobu, drawing on a Chinese garden treatise. It refers to six qualities that are hard to reconcile in one garden: spaciousness and seclusion, artifice and antiquity, flowing water and broad views. Kenroku-en is admired for achieving them all, with open lawns and shaded groves, carefully shaped pines and moss-covered stones, and views over the city to the mountains.

The garden's water comes from the Tatsumi Canal, dug in 1632 to bring water from the Sai River to the castle, and it feeds the ponds, waterfalls and what is said to be Japan's oldest fountain, driven only by the natural pressure of water from the pond above. Kenroku-en was opened to the public in 1874 and is managed by Ishikawa Prefecture.

The Maeda clan ruled Kaga from Kanazawa from 1583 until 1871. The garden began as the setting of Tsunanori's villa, burned in the Hōreki fire of 1759, and was restored in 1774 with the Midori waterfall and the Yūgao-tei tea house. In 1822 Maeda Narinaga completed a retirement palace on the upper plateau, and the garden received its name.

Nariyasu demolished the palace and extended the garden over its site, bringing it close to its present layout. After the Meiji Restoration it was opened in stages to the public, fully from 1874. It became a Place of Scenic Beauty in 1922 and a Special Place of Scenic Beauty in 1985.

Kenroku-en shows the culture of the Kaga domain, whose lords spent their wealth on the arts rather than on arms: tea, noh, crafts and gardens. The garden is designed to be walked, revealing a new composition at each turn, and it changes with the seasons — plum and cherry in spring, irises and azaleas in early summer, maple leaves in autumn and snow ropes and lanterns in winter.

With Kairakuen in Mito and Kōraku-en in Okayama it is traditionally counted among the three great gardens of Japan, and for many it is the finest of the three. The garden is also a symbol of Kanazawa, a city that escaped wartime bombing and preserves its castle town, teahouse districts and craft traditions.