Shibuya Family Residence

Shibuya Family Residence

The Shibuya Family Residence (澁谷家住宅, Shibuya-ke Jūtaku) in Nakasatsuma, Kamagaya City, Chiba Prefecture, is the homestead of a village headman's family whose main house dates from 1826; the main house, rice storehouse and gate were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on August 17, 2020 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The name has nothing to do with the Shibuya district of Tokyo: it is a family surname, written here with an older form of the first character.

They were the first registered properties in Kamagaya, listed on the same day as the Maruya inn buildings in the city. Kamagaya City describes the main house as the oldest surviving building in the city. It remained a private home until fiscal 2022, when the city bought it together with its land; Kamagaya City is now the owner.

The Headman's Family of Satsuma Village

According to the city's conservation plan, the household went by the trade name Juemon, and its earliest recorded head appears in a land register of 1620. From the late 18th century at the latest, the family served generation after generation as headman of Satsuma (佐津間) village, part of the Tanaka domain of the Honda clan. After the Meiji Restoration its heads held local office, and in 1891 one became mayor of Kamagaya village.

More than 24,000 family documents survive, the largest body of historical records in the city. The house is also the birthplace of Shibuya Soji, born here in 1846 as the family's second son. He became an officer of the Sekihotai, a volunteer vanguard of the new government's army, but was denounced as a member of a false imperial force and executed at Shimosuwa in Shinano in the third month of 1868, aged 22. His name was cleared with a posthumous court rank in 1928, and in 1929 a memorial stone was raised at Hosen-in temple in Minami-Satsuma (Kamagaya City).

How the Homestead Is Laid Out

The three registered buildings line up from the centre of the plot toward the east (Agency for Cultural Affairs). At the heart stands the main house, facing east under a hipped thatched roof now sheathed in metal. Southeast of it, the earthen-walled rice storehouse faces west, and directly in front of the main house a gate with flanking walls marks the entrance.

Fields run from the gate out to the road, and the Agency counts them as part of the village landscape the buildings create. The city plan adds the straight approach across the fields from the old Namamichi fish road (鮮魚街道), the woodland on the terrace behind the house and a small stone shrine within it. The plot has kept its original bounds, within a roadside settlement that preserves land divisions going back to a medieval fortified village.

The planning area takes in the three buildings, the woodland and the fields, all now city land. Each building is described on its own page.

Conservation and Opening Plans

The city's conservation and use plan was approved by the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs on June 24, 2024. It takes the late Edo period, when the main house was built, as the period to conserve, but will not strip the house back to its original layout; the traces of everyday life from the Edo period to the Heisei era are to be kept as well.

To pay for roof repairs, the city ran its first crowdfunding campaign from April 15 to July 13, 2026, and raised 3,045,501 yen from 138 donations against a target of 3 million yen (Kamagaya City). The plan's schedule sets repair work for fiscal 2026 and opening to the public for fiscal 2027.

Visiting

The grounds are not open at present (Kamagaya City). The house was never shown to the public while it was a private home; it was first opened in 2023, for workshops and guided tours held while the plan was being drawn up.

Under the plan, visits will remain city-run and by reservation after opening, with about four interior tours and two outdoor events a year. Dates and booking details are to be announced by the city; enquiries go to the Culture and Sports Division of Kamagaya City (tel. 047-445-1528).