Kyu Yasuda Garden

About this place

The Kyu Yasuda Teien Gardens in Tokyo's Ryogoku district in Sumida ward are just north of the sumo stadium, the Kokugikan. Kyu Yasuda Teien Gardens began life as the grounds of a samurai residence in 1691. The residence was famed for its pond that was fed by the Sumida River, running alongside the plot. The Sumida being as close to the sea as it is was affected by the tides, causing the water level in the garden pond to rise and fall with it. The land's 20th century inheritor, Yasuda Zenjiro, granted the land to the public after his death in 1922, but the Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1923 destroyed it. Renovation was complete by 1927 when it became a park. Immediate post War development so polluted the Sumida River that the grounds virtually died. They were restored in 1971. Unlike Kiyosumi Teien Gardens a little further south in Fukagawa, Kyu Yasuda Teien Garden is a public park and therefore free.