Miyauchi Family Residence Old Retirement House

Built in the Year the Harbour Was Begun

The Miyauchi Family Residence Old Retirement House (宮内家住宅古隠居, Miyauchi-ke Jūtaku Furu-Inkyo) is a retirement building of 1812 standing within the Miyauchi Family Residence in Nadamachi, Iyo City, Ehime Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 10 May 2018. It occupies the far west of the compound on a north-south axis: a single storey of timber under a gabled Kirizuma-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles, with a building area of 63 square meters.

That year, 1812, was a turning point for the port quarter of Gunchu. Oka Bunshiro, a clerk at the local magistrate's office, began work with the townspeople on the Ban'an harbour. Construction ran 24 years. The finished harbour, later known as Gunchu Port, shipped out rice and timber from the Ozu domain along with whetstones and pottery from Tobe. The Miyauchi Family Residence Old Retirement House went up as those works started.

The Miyauchi family had arrived on this shore in 1636 from the village of Kaminada, founded the town, took the shop name Nadaya, and served as town elders. A family already at the centre of Nadamachi before the harbour existed put up this small building at the back of its plot just as the harbour age opened.

Why It Was Listed

The Miyauchi Family Residence Old Retirement House was registered under the criterion for buildings that contribute to the historic character of the landscape, the same ground used for the main house at the street. The two mark the front and back limits of a merchant plot that once ran a very long way inland.

At 63 square meters it is the smallest of the roofed buildings here, against 255 square meters for the main house and 96 for the retirement house of about 1912. The carpentry around the formal room, however, is finer than the footprint suggests, and the Ehime Prefectural Board of Education describes the building as having an old-fashioned elegance.

Its value lies partly in the comparison it makes possible. Two retirement buildings, a century apart, survive on one plot, so the changing idea of how a merchant family housed its retired head can be read on a single site.

A Dragon on the Ceiling

The plan runs long from north to south, with an eight-mat principal room at the southern end. Engawa verandas pass along both the east and west flanks, and rooms of four and three mats follow to the north. It is space enough for a retired head of household living alone, not a house arranged to receive large parties.

In the eight-mat room the posts and the Nageshi tie beams are of menkawa timber, squared only partly so that a strip of the log's rounded outer surface remains along each arris. The technique belongs to the tea room. Against the crisply dressed members of Shoin-zukuri work, the effect is deliberately softer.

A large round window opens beside the Tokonoma on the south wall. The form is plain, just a circle cut through the plaster, but the opening is wide enough to carry garden light deep into the room.

Look up and the eight-mat room has a flat boarded ceiling, a kagami-tenjo or mirror ceiling, painted with a dragon. The four-mat room to the north carries cranes in flight. Painted ceilings are rare in a private retirement wing, and these two rooms show how far an early nineteenth-century merchant family took the decoration of space meant only for itself.

Access and Restrictions on Viewing

The Miyauchi Family Residence Old Retirement House is closed to visitors. The compound is still a family home, access stops at the main house on the street, and the building at the back of the plot cannot be entered or seen from the road. The dragon ceiling and the round window are not on public view.

The main house at the front has been repaired and runs as the Musee Nadaya community space, rented by advance booking in blocks between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. The dedicated line is 080-2981-6281. Exhibitions and events there sometimes cover the history of the compound, so it is worth asking before you travel.

Photography does not apply here, as the Miyauchi Family Residence Old Retirement House is closed. Please treat the site as private property.

Nadamachi is about three minutes on foot from Iyo Station on the JR Yosan Line or Gunchuko Station on the Iyotetsu Gunchu Line. The Ban'an harbour begun in the same year the building went up survives in part: its old stone lighthouse stands beside Goshikihama park and can be visited freely. Fifteen free parking spaces are shared between the lot behind the main house and the Eiyoji temple lot.