In May 1872, in the absence on leave of Sir Harry Parkes, the British minister in Tokyo since 1865, the chargé d’affaires, F.O. Adams, signed the lease for a plot of land outside the Hanzomon gate in Kojimachi. Parkes had been searching for a site for the British legation in the city proper since at least 1867, but it was not until the spring of 1871 that he found the site he wanted, close to the Imperial Palace. As he explained on leave in November 1871, he had undertaken to lease it, without approval, rather than lose the opportunity. Assistant surveyor Boyce at Shanghai showed less enthusiasm than Parkes, but indicated it would do. It was close to the ‘official offices and residences of the Native Government’ and the palace. The rental, Mexican $5 per 100 tsubo, or Mexican $900 (£200) a year was fair and reflected the usual rate. (Parkes minuted: ‘Not the usual rate, but an unusually modest one in Japan’.) In the assumption that Parkes's actions would be approved, he had drawn up plans for the buildings, and was ‘happy to say that they have … all received the approval of the Minister and officers more immediately concerned’.

A permanent lease was signed in 1884. Just over 10,833 tsubo or 42,898.68 square yards was made available for the legation and ‘for no further use free of any charge whatsoever except the rent.’ This was six silver yen – the yen having replaced the Mexican dollar by 1884 – per 100 tsubo, or Yen 652.32, (£200), due annually on 1 July. The lease contained a never invoked clause allowing for the reversal of the land if needed for defence against ‘a foreign or a domestic enemy’

Parkes's main wish was that his house should have a veranda on the north side, and a tower to serve both ‘as a cool retreat on summer evenings’, and as a lookout point. Boyce believed that the minister's proposed two storey house would be able to withstand ‘the slight shocks of earthquake occasionally felt’, since the palace gates and walls had done so for many years.