Banjo Brewery Inner Well

What the Banjo Brewery Inner Well Is

The Banjo Brewery Inner Well (萬乗醸造内井戸, Banjō Jōzō Uchi-ido) is a late Edo-period stone well in Otakacho, Midori Ward, Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on 31 July 2007 under registration number 23-0243. Two shafts stand side by side on a north-south line inside the brewery grounds, close to the south wall of the original storehouse.

Both well curbs are circular and cut from stone, 2.5 meters in outside diameter, and the shafts run about 8 meters deep. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records two units of 4.9 square meters each and counts the Insū, the registered quantity, as one place rather than one building. The classification is a constructed work rather than a building.

The Banjo Brewery Inner Well is understood to date from the founding period of the business and is also known as the original storehouse well. Its estimated date of 1751 to 1829 places it in the same layer as the middle storehouse. Brewing consumes water for mashing and also for washing rice, steaming and cleaning equipment, so the position of a water source decides where a brewery can stand at all.

Why It Was Registered

The Banjo Brewery Inner Well was registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the nation. That equipment rather than architecture was included says something about the character of this blanket registration.

Twelve structures at the brewery were registered on 31 July 2007. Two of them, this well and the outer well, are constructed works; the remaining ten are buildings. Wells are less conspicuous than halls and workshops and are commonly filled in. Both survived here and both were registered.

Buildings alone do not show how a brewery worked. A place to handle rice, halls to ferment in, a shop to repair casks, and wells to draw from. The Banjo Brewery Inner Well is the first of those elements and gives a concrete reason why brewing took root at Odaka.

What to Look For

The form of the Banjo Brewery Inner Well is a pair of shafts set close together on a north-south line. Sinking two rather than one was presumably a matter of yield. When water was raised by bucket and rope, a single shaft could only deliver so much.

An outside curb diameter of 2.5 meters is large. Domestic wells run closer to 1 meter, so the dimension marks this as production equipment. The figure of 4.9 square meters recorded by the Agency for Cultural Affairs matches the area of a circle 2.5 meters across.

The depth of about 8 meters is equally specific. Otaka lies on the left bank of the Otaka River, ground where groundwater is within reach, and the Banjo Brewery Inner Well stops at the level of that flow. The southern shaft of the outer well on the separate plot is also 2.5 meters across and 8 meters deep, so the two were sunk to a common pattern.

The Banjo Brewery Inner Well sits deep in the site near the south wall of the original storehouse and cannot be seen from the public road. The commentaries and photographs published by the Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Aichi Prefectural Board of Education are the sources available.

Visiting

The Banjo Brewery Inner Well lies inside the premises of an operating sake company and is not open. The grounds cannot be entered and the well is not visible from the public road. The company states on the FAQ page of its official site that it does not sell sake at the brewery, so there is no shop or visitor reception.

Photographing the Banjo Brewery Inner Well is not possible. Keep to exterior views of the site from the public road, and avoid photographing into the premises or at people at work. No scheduled special opening could be confirmed in the published information of the Agency for Cultural Affairs or the Aichi Prefectural Board of Education.

The site is about 15 minutes on foot from Odaka Station on the JR Tokaido Main Line. Enter the old quarter from the station and follow the left bank of the Otaka River westward into the brewing street. Midori Ward publishes a 5.7 kilometre walking route, the Odaka Castle Town Course, which runs through it toward the castle site. The well lies south of the roofs visible from the road.