Ishibashi Family Residence South Storehouse

A Roadside Storehouse South of the Gate

The Ishibashi Family Residence South Storehouse (石橋家住宅南の蔵, Ishibashi-ke Jūtaku Minami no Kura) is a Meiji-period (1868–1911) storehouse at the Ishibashi Family Residence in Kuizaki, Narita City, Chiba Prefecture, and it was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (registration number 12-0017) on July 8, 1999. Built in the thick-walled Dozo-zukuri manner, it is a single storey under a tiled gable roof (Kirizuma-zukuri), with its ridge running north to south just south of the front gate. The building area is 31 square meters.

It became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 1999 for its contribution to the historic landscape: with the gate and the East Storehouse, the South Storehouse forms the face the estate shows to the road.

Windows and Work Porch of the South Storehouse

The Ishibashi Family Residence South Storehouse has two windows on its long road-facing side and one in the gable end to the south. Those two road-side windows are also one way to tell it from the East Storehouse across the gate, which has only one.

On the west side, away from the road, a lean-to roof (Geya) shelters a kuramae, a covered space in front of the storehouse door for loading goods and doing chores. It faces the inside of the grounds and cannot be seen from the street.

The Notched-Batten Cladding of the Ishibashi South Storehouse

The care on the Ishibashi Family Residence South Storehouse goes into the lower walls. On the east face, toward the road, and the north face, toward the gate, the base of the wall is clad in sasarago Shitami-itabari: overlapping horizontal boards held down by vertical battens notched to fit every step of the boards. The result is a band of fine, regular vertical lines along the bottom of the wall.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs explains that this cladding tidies the roadside view, including the gate and the East Storehouse. Only the two faces that people see received it.

The East Storehouse, north of the gate, is built in much the same way but has a single window toward the road and boards carried all the way up to the plastered band under the eaves (Hachimaki). Window count and board height are the quickest ways to tell the pair apart.

Visiting the Ishibashi Family Residence South Storehouse

The Ishibashi Family Residence South Storehouse is part of a private home that Narita City lists as closed to the public, and the interior cannot be entered. Its east face and the north face beside the gate's side door can be seen from the public road. The west face with its work porch lies inside the grounds.

The battens cast their sharpest shadows when seen at an angle from across the road. Please keep photographs to what is visible from the street.