Ōte-mon

In front of you, across the bridge, is Ōte-mon, the main gate of Edo Castle. This was the front door to the shogun's world. Imperial envoys arrived this way, the shogun himself came and went through it, and the great lords, the daimyō, crossed this bridge when they came to report to the castle. The gate was built to impress, but also to trap. Look closely and you'll see it is really two gates. First a smaller one, then, set at a right angle behind it, a large two-storey gatehouse. Anyone who forced the first gate would find himself boxed into a square courtyard, with defenders firing down from above. The gatehouse you see is not the original. It burned in an air raid in April 1945 and was rebuilt in the 1960s. Inside, beyond the gate, an ornament from the old roof is kept, a mythical fish dated 1657. Today Ōte-mon is the main way into the East Gardens, open in the daytime. But whatever the hour, pause on the bridge for a moment. This is the view the daimyō had as they arrived.