Shinyosha Paper Mill

What Is Shinyosha Paper Mill?

Shinyosha Paper Mill (信洋舎製紙所, Shin'yōsha Seishijo) is a handmade washi paper mill in Sadatomo-cho, Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture, established in 1886, whose four Meiji-era workshop buildings were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2020.

Sadatomo is one of the hamlets of the Goka district, the heartland of Echizen washi. The Agency for Cultural Affairs places the Shinyosha Paper Mill site at the foot of Mount Daitoku, among a row of papermaking workshops that still line the valley.

This is not a museum. Shinyosha Paper Mill still makes paper by hand every working day. According to the Fukui Prefecture Washi Industry Cooperative, its main products today are business cards and postcards with deckle edges left on all four sides, about 0.4 mm thick. The mill itself says that its Meiji buildings and machinery survive largely as they were.

A Short History of Shinyosha Paper Mill

Two founding dates are in circulation. The Council for Cultural Affairs report of March 19, 2020, which recommended the buildings for registration, describes Shinyosha Paper Mill as a paper works set up in 1886, and dates the oldest of its four buildings, the Former Rest Area and Drying Room Building, to the same year. The mill's own website and the washi cooperative give 1888 as the founding year. None of the sources consulted explains what each date counts from.

The mill's website says that in its early years Shinyosha employed around 50 papermakers. The first proprietor specialized in kyokushi, a thick paper made from mitsumata fiber, and the company states that this paper won a gold cup at a Paris world's fair. In its 2017 event listing the mill also said that, since the Meiji era, it had exported paper mainly as art paper for copperplate printing. A fifth-generation papermaker runs the vats today.

The workshops grew in stages through the Meiji period, beginning with the 1886 drying building and ending with the late-Meiji papermaking hall. In fiscal 2023, Fukui Prefecture's historic building conservation program helped fund repairs to the roof tiles, roof boarding, roof framing and interior walls.

How the Four Buildings Follow the Work

The four buildings of Shinyosha Paper Mill are joined to one another and work as a single factory. Reading the Agency for Cultural Affairs descriptions together, the Former Rest Area and Drying Room Building adjoins the south side of the Papermaking Building; the Boiler and Former Roller Room Building attaches to its west; and the Former Fiber Cleaning and Finishing Building continues to the north of the boiler building.

The 2020 report notes that the buildings stand in the order of the work. Match each room to a stage of washi making and the sequence runs like this: picking specks and debris out of the soaked fiber (chiritori), forming sheets at the vat (suki), brushing the wet sheets onto boards to dry (hari), glazing them between rollers, and finishing. Because the fiber-cleaning room and the finishing room are the ground and upper floors of the same building, the layout reads as a loop that ends where it began.

Fukui Prefecture describes the buildings as having Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roofs in Sangawara-buki pantiles. Interior walls are boarded; the outer walls are clad in vertical boards with an earthen layer on the inside. Floors are concrete, and the bays that held papermaking machinery are open through two storeys (Fukinuke). For three of the four buildings, the Agency singles out generous runs of glass windows, put there for light and air.

The Four Registered Buildings of Shinyosha Paper Mill

All four buildings of Shinyosha Paper Mill were entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on August 17, 2020, under consecutive registration numbers 18-0211 to 18-0214. Each was registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

• Shinyosha Paper Mill Papermaking Building: late Meiji period (1898–1912), one-storey timber, tiled roof, building area 133 m²
• Shinyosha Paper Mill Former Rest Area and Drying Room Building: 1886, two-storey timber, tiled roof, building area 51 m²
• Shinyosha Paper Mill Boiler and Former Roller Room Building: mid-Meiji period (1883–1897), two-storey timber, tiled roof, building area 122 m²
• Shinyosha Paper Mill Former Fiber Cleaning and Finishing Building: 1899, two-storey timber, tiled roof, building area 101 m²

The registration report calls Shinyosha a paper factory that continues to support a traditional local industry. A boiler and a glazing roller set into what is otherwise a hand workshop show, in the Agency's words, how papermaking moved from pure handcraft toward modern methods during the Meiji period.

Visiting Shinyosha Paper Mill

Shinyosha Paper Mill is a private, working factory, not a public attraction. Its website lists no tour program. Business hours are 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday to Friday, and the mill asks that inquiries be made mainly by email, since the papermakers often cannot answer the phone while working. If you hope to visit, write in advance.

The most reliable chance to see inside is RENEW, an open-factory event held over three days each autumn across Echizen, Sabae and Echizen-cho. Shinyosha Paper Mill opened its workshop to visitors during RENEW in 2017, and in 2019 it offered letterpress printing sessions and sales at the workshop. Participants change from year to year, so check the official exhibitor list before you go.

Echizen Washi Village is the easiest landmark: Shinyosha Paper Mill lies about 500 m northeast of its Papyrus House in a straight line. According to the village's access page, Fukutetsu buses on the Nanetsu or Ikeda lines run from Takefu Station (Hapi-Line Fukui) to the Washi no Sato stop in about 30 minutes. From Echizen-Takefu Station on the Hokuriku Shinkansen it is about 10 minutes by taxi, and by car about 10 minutes from the Takefu interchange on the Hokuriku Expressway. The mill's website gives no information on visitor parking.