Miyauchi Family Residence Main House

A Merchant Townhouse Facing the Old Ozu Highway

The Miyauchi Family Residence Main House (宮内家住宅主屋, Miyauchi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a mid-Edo-period merchant townhouse in Nadamachi, Iyo City, Ehime Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 10 May 2018. It faces east onto the old Ozu highway, measures 10 and a half ken across the street front, about 19 meters,, and covers 255 square meters. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to the middle Edo period, between 1661 and 1751; Iyo City gives 1738 for the original construction.

The family arrived here through a land swap. In 1636 the Matsuyama and Ozu domains exchanged territory, and two brothers from the village of Kaminada, Miyauchi Kuemon and Miyauchi Seibei, asked the Ozu lord Kato Yasuoki for permission to develop the shoreline at Kominato. The town they laid out became present-day Gunchu, the port quarter of Iyo City.

The domain granted the family the town name Nadamachi and the shop name Nadaya. They served as town elders, brewed sake, and traded in Ozu washi paper. Iyo City's tourism office records that in 1808 the surveying party of Ino Tadataka, then mapping the whole of Japan, lodged here. The compound once covered roughly 1000 tsubo, about 3300 square meters, and included a formal gate reserved for the domain lord and for shogunal inspectors.

Why It Was Listed

The Miyauchi Family Residence Main House was listed under the criterion of contributing to the historic character of the landscape. The Ehime Prefectural Board of Education ranks it among the oldest surviving townhouses in the prefecture and singles out its Hongawarabuki roof of paired round and flat tiles, a heavier and more expensive covering than the pantiles used on most townhouses of the period.

The roof carries a Chidori-hafu, a triangular dormer gable, and the gable ends rise into Udatsu, the raised fire walls that in Edo-period towns doubled as a display of means. Walk the street and the density of carpentry here stands out against its neighbors.

The building was repaired in 2016. In April 2017 Iyo City made it the first structure designated under the Landscape Act as a structure of cityscape importance, a year before the national listing.

What to Look For

The street elevation reads as one long wall of Tsushi-nikai, the low half-storey used for storage above the shop. The ground floor is lined with projecting lattice screens over horizontal boarding. Above, the plaster runs unbroken up to the bracketed eaves, pierced only by a narrow barred opening called a mushiko-mado, or insect-cage window. From the road it looks like a slot cut into the render.

Look at the roofline as well. A second roof crosses the main ridge at right angles and reads from the front as a dormer gable. A Geya lean-to shelters the ground floor, so the eaves step down in two stages and the façade gains depth. The tiles carry the Miyauchi family crest.

Inside, the north side is an earth-floored Doma and the south side divides into three ranks of rooms, with the uppermost rank given over to formal Zashiki. The Shoin-zukuri reception room is said to survive as Ino's party would have seen it, and is now opened as the Ino Room. One carved Ranma transom shows cranes lifting from a rolling sea; another sets sixteen family crests into a lattice.

A reproduction of the Gunchu Shihaku Hamabe-zu, a townscape scroll, hangs in the same room. Its opening inscription explains that an earthquake in November 1854 damaged the buildings so badly that repairs changed the look of the street, so the painter recorded the town as it had been. The original is held by the Iyo City Library. The scroll also shows how the plots ran: frontages of 4.5 to 6 ken, roughly 8 meters to 11 meters, against depths reaching 60 ken, some 109 meters.

Visiting

The Miyauchi Family Residence Main House now operates as a community space called Musee Nadaya. A multipurpose room, the east and west halves of the Ino Room, and the earth-floored area are rented out by time block, and booking ahead is required. The blocks run 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. City residents and cultural association groups pay 500 yen a block; commercial events pay 1,000 yen a block, with 500 yen added for heating or cooling. Bookings go through the dedicated line, 080-2981-6281.

The compound is still lived in, and access is limited to the main house. The retirement buildings and the stone tide basin further back are closed. The exterior can be seen at any time from the old highway.

Photography rules depend on what the space is being used for, so ask when you book. Rental income goes toward repair and upkeep of the Miyauchi Family Residence Main House.

Iyo Station on the JR Yosan Line and Gunchuko Station on the Iyotetsu Gunchu Line are each about three minutes on foot. Fifteen free parking spaces are available between the lot behind the building and the Eiyoji temple lot.