Meiji

A Meiji wax merchant's estate in Uchiko, Ehime. Ten listed buildings keep the cauldron house and bleaching yard beside the living rooms. Open as a wax museum.

A Meiji villa on a cliff above the Hiji River in Ozu. Three listed buildings: a thatched house of seven rooms, a retreat cantilevered over the water, a storehouse.

Discover the Former Kaimei School in Seiyo, Ehime — the oldest elementary school building in Shikoku, built in 1882. This Important Cultural Property features rare Giyōfū architecture, a museum with 6,000 educational artifacts, and hands-on Meiji-era classroom experiences.

Standing on the small island of Tsurushima off Matsuyama in Ehime Prefecture, Tsurushima Lighthouse is a Western-style stone lighthouse completed in 1873 to the design of Richard Henry Brunton, the Scottish engineer known as the Father of Japanese Lighthouses. It is one of the very few Meiji-era lighthouses still in active service in essentially its original form, and was designated a National Important Cultural Property in 2024 together with its former keepers' quarters, warehouse and stone walls.

A wax merchant's house in Uchiko, an Important Cultural Property since 1990: four buildings of about 1884, with plaster relief worked across the street wall.

A walled frontage of about 1893 in Kihoku, Ehime. Undressed stone runs 44 metres beside the entrance steps, carrying a tiled earthen wall of 26 metres. Listed 2012.

An earthen-walled storehouse of about 1893 in Kihoku, Ehime. Charred cedar boards, lime plaster at the windows, a roof set clear of the walls. Registered 2012.

A single-storey wooden house of about 1893 at the foot of a hill in Kihoku Town, Ehime. Formal rooms in front, kitchen behind; 236 square metres. Registered in 2012.

A sandstone retaining wall of the middle Meiji era in Kihoku, Ehime, running 100 metres along the south edge of the estate, up to 2.7 metres high. Listed 2012.

Umenishiki Yamakawa Main House fronts the old Kawanoe road in Shikokuchuo, Ehime: a mid-Meiji brewer's shop and home under one tiled roof. Registered in 2001.

Built in 1884 as a police station, moved in 1953 to serve as a town hall and returned in 1992, this Uwajima museum was the first building listed in Ehime.

A late Meiji rendered timber office in Kawanoishi, Yawatahama, its door set into a chamfered corner, listed in 1999 and still used by the silkworm egg firm.

Spanning the Kojoro River gorge in Niihama City, Ehime Prefecture, Otoshi Bridge is one of Japan's oldest surviving steel arch bridges. Built in 1905 with German Burbach steel as a combined road bridge and drainage channel for the legendary Besshi Copper Mine, this 48-metre spandrel-braced single-arch structure is registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property. Standing silently in a deep mountain gorge, it remains a vivid witness to the industrial heritage that powered Japan's modernization.

Kimura Family Residence Main House, an 1881 merchant house in Mitsu, Matsuyama, keeps its earth-floored passage, boxed stair and tall loft under a tiled roof.

This early Meiji storehouse in Mitsu, Matsuyama, was built for rice, then reopened toward the sea with three tall sash windows and used as a study. Registered 2019.

The smallest of the four listed Kimura buildings in Mitsu, Matsuyama, this former storeroom became a bathroom in 1914 and keeps its bat-motif tiles. Registered 2019.

Built in 1911 as a merchants' inn in Uwajima, Ehime, this wooden two-story building has a frontage over 20 meters and guest rooms with individual alcove fittings.

Built in 1905 as the sales office for Tobe's Baizan kiln, this merchant house keeps a ten-mat room with a biwa-doko alcove. Registered in 2023, open weekends, free.

This 1905 earthen-walled storehouse shipped Tobe porcelain out of town. A Western roof truss clears the upper floor above a central hoisting well. Registered 2023.

A late Meiji sake storehouse in Uchiko, Ehime, framed with traditional inclined beams instead of a truss. Registered in 2024, it now holds the town history displays.