Registration number 38-0001
The Uwajima City Historical Museum (Former Uwajima Police Station) is a two-storey Western-style timber building in the Sumiyoshicho district of Uwajima, Ehime Prefecture, put up in 1884 and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 20 December 1996. Its Japanese name is 宇和島市立歴史資料館（旧宇和島警察署）, read Uwajima Shiritsu Rekishi Shiryōkan. The floor area is about 214 square meters under a tile roof.
Agency for Cultural Affairs records give its registration number as 38-0001. The 38 identifies Ehime Prefecture; the last four digits run in sequence within it. This building was the first in Ehime to be listed, and it went on the register in the very first round of listings, at a point when the whole registration scheme was only weeks old.
The criterion applied was that the building would be difficult to reproduce. Not that it is beautiful, or old, or important to a famous person. That nobody could build it again.
Built as a police station, retired as a town hall
The building opened in September 1884 on Hirokoji, a street in central Uwajima, as the Uwajima Police Station. The work was led by a master carpenter named Inagaki Yakichi. No trained architect was involved. A head of a traditional carpentry trade read the Western manner off drawings and off buildings he could see, and then built it.
What happened afterwards is unusual. In February 1953 the structure was taken apart and moved south to the town of Nishiumi in Minamiuwa District, now part of Ainan, where it served as the town hall until January 1990. When the town commissioned a new office building and demolition was on the table, residents and supporters pushed instead for a return. In March 1992 it came home, reassembled beside the Kabasaki battery site in Sumiyoshicho.
Where it was built, where it worked, and where it stands today are three different places. The history of the Uwajima City Historical Museum (Former Uwajima Police Station) is a record of what a Meiji-era Western-style building had to do to survive.
What a village carpenter made of the West
The style is classed as Giyōfū, a term for buildings that reach for a Western look from a base of Japanese carpentry, learned by observation rather than through formal training in the European orders.
The feature that carries the front is the entrance porch, which rises through both storeys in a single gesture and is capped by a triangular pediment. Sash windows and a moulded cornice run around beneath the eaves. That is a fairly complete Western vocabulary, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs singles the building out as an early and properly executed example of the manner in this part of the country, crediting the skill of the carpenter who led it.
Some of the evidence is out of sight. During the 1992 reconstruction, surveyors examining the roof frame found corner-set rafter assemblies and turnip-shaped struts, joinery of a standard nobody visiting the finished building would ever have seen. The care went into the attic as well as the facade.
The building is one of the exhibits
The permanent displays treat the structure as a subject in its own right. On the ground floor, the first gallery and the lobby explain the history and construction of the building alongside period photographs and old maps of the town, including a bird's-eye view of Uwajima from the early Showa years by Yoshida Hatsusaburo, an artist celebrated in Japan for panoramic tourist maps.
Upstairs, the second gallery covers Uwajima from prehistory to the Edo period with finds from local sites, and the third is given over to people from Uwajima who made their mark in the Meiji era, among them the judge Kojima Iken, the legal scholar Hozumi Nobushige, and Owada Takeki, who wrote the words to the Railway Song that generations of Japanese schoolchildren learned by heart.
Then comes the fourth gallery. Its theme is the craftsmanship of the building itself, with panels that ask you to read the techniques and the detailing as the exhibit. It is a room where you look at the room. Through its windows the Kabasaki battery site sits close below, an artillery emplacement raised in 1855 to guard Uwajima Bay. Two answers to the arrival of the West, forty years apart, fall inside one view.
A recurring display devoted to Takabatake Kasho, the illustrator born in Uwajima whose romantic drawings of youth defined a look for Taisho-era magazines, is mounted roughly once a year.
Visiting
The Uwajima City Historical Museum (Former Uwajima Police Station) opens from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and admission is free. It closes on Tuesdays, or on the next weekday when a Tuesday falls on a public holiday, and over the new year period from 29 December to 3 January. The weekly closing day moved from Monday to Tuesday in April 2021, so older guidebooks may mislead you.
Photographing the exterior is unrestricted. The official pages do not state a policy for photography inside the galleries, so ask at the reception desk.
From JR Uwajima Station, take a city bus bound for Oura or Akamatsu, ride six minutes, get off at the Sumiyoshicho stop and walk two minutes. The adult fare is 150 yen one way. Free parking is available; drivers coming from the Matsuyama direction leave the Uwajima expressway at the Asahi interchange, and those approaching from Shimanto use National Route 56.
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Q&A
- What are the opening hours and admission fee at the Uwajima City Historical Museum?
- It is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and admission is free. The museum closes on Tuesdays, or the following weekday if that Tuesday is a public holiday, and from 29 December to 3 January. The weekly closing day changed from Monday to Tuesday in April 2021.
- What was the Uwajima City Historical Museum building originally used for?
- It was built in September 1884 on Hirokoji in central Uwajima as the Uwajima Police Station. In 1953 it was dismantled and moved to the town of Nishiumi, now part of Ainan, where it served as the town hall until 1990. It was returned to Uwajima and reassembled in Sumiyoshicho in March 1992.
- What is the heritage status of the Uwajima City Historical Museum, and when was it granted?
- It is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in the buildings category, listed on 20 December 1996 and gazetted on 26 December that year. Its registration number, 38-0001, marks it as the first listing in Ehime Prefecture. The criterion applied was that the building would be difficult to reproduce.
- What should visitors look for in the architecture of the Uwajima City Historical Museum?
- The entrance porch, which rises through both storeys and carries a triangular pediment, along with the sash windows and the moulded cornice under the eaves. The fourth gallery upstairs is devoted to the building's own techniques and detailing, presented with explanatory panels as if the fabric were the exhibit.
- How do you get to the Uwajima City Historical Museum?
- Take a city bus from JR Uwajima Station bound for Oura or Akamatsu, ride six minutes to the Sumiyoshicho stop, then walk two minutes. The adult fare is 150 yen one way, and free parking is available for drivers.
Basic Information
| Name | Uwajima City Historical Museum (Former Uwajima Police Station) / 宇和島市立歴史資料館（旧宇和島警察署） |
|---|---|
| Location | 2-4-36 Sumiyoshicho, Uwajima City, Ehime Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (buildings) |
| Year Designated | Registered 20 December 1996 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | 2-storey timber, tile roof, floor area about 214 square meters |
| Owner | Uwajima City |
| Public Access | Open 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., free admission; closed Tuesdays (next weekday if a public holiday) and from 29 December to 3 January |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Uwajima City Historical Museum (Former Uwajima Police Station)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00000104
- Cultural Heritage Online: Uwajima City Historical Museum (Former Uwajima Police Station)
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/112984
- Uwajima City: About the Uwajima City Historical Museum
- https://www.city.uwajima.ehime.jp/site/siryoukan/rekishitop.html
- Uwajima City: Visitor information for the Historical Museum
- https://www.city.uwajima.ehime.jp/site/siryoukan/rekisiriyouannnai.html
- Uwajima City: Access to the Historical Museum
- https://www.city.uwajima.ehime.jp/site/siryoukan/rekishikokotsu.html
- Uwajima City: Permanent exhibitions at the Historical Museum
- https://www.city.uwajima.ehime.jp/site/siryoukan/jousetu.html
Last verified: 2026.09.04