inner teahouse garden
In traditional Japanese tea ceremony architecture, the inner garden within the central gate (中門) of a tea house, as opposed to the outer garden (外露地).
To reach the tea room, one passes through the middle gate from the outer garden, goes through the inner garden, and approaches the crawl-in entrance.
外露地 is the outer tea garden, while 内露地 is the inner garden beyond the middle gate.
中門 is the central gate that separates the outer and inner tea gardens.
Standard kanji spelling for the inner tea garden.
Variant spelling using 路 instead of 露; less common but attested.
Compound of 内 (uchi, 'inner') and 露地 (roji, 'tea garden'). The spelling 露地 is standard for tea gardens, while 路地 is a variant.