Glover House
Oldest Western wooden house.
Unknown — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Christophe95 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · 663highland — CC BY 2.5 · Masoud Akbari — CC BY-SA 3.0 · 663highland — CC BY 2.5 · Masoud Akbari — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Suicasmo — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Masoud Akbari — CC BY-SA 3.0
A garden on the Minamiyamate hillside overlooking Nagasaki's harbour, holding the houses of Western merchants who settled after the port opened to trade, above all that of Thomas Blake Glover, the Scottish merchant who helped modernise Japan's shipbuilding and coal mining. Glover House was completed in 1863 by the carpenter Koyama Hidenoshin and is the oldest surviving Western-style wooden house in Japan, an Important Cultural Property and part of the World Heritage «Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution». It blends Western features such as stone verandas, latticed arches and French windows with Japanese ones such as its tiled roof. The garden also has the Ringer and Alt houses and other Western houses moved here, flower beds and a wide view over the harbour and Mount Inasa. It is also linked to the opera «Madame Butterfly», with statues of Puccini and the soprano Miura Tamaki. Tickets have been 1,300 yen for adults since April 2026, according to the official site, and it opens 8:00-18:00, with later summer evenings, per visitor guides. Escalators help with the climb.
Oldest Western wooden house.
And Mount Inasa.
Around the houses.
Minamiyamate, Nagasaki
1,300 yen for adults since April 2026, according to the official site.
