A Stone Weaving Shed in Kiryu
The Former Horiyū Textile Factory (旧堀祐織物工場, also written Horiyu; registered together with its present occupant as 旧堀祐織物工場（美容室アッシュキリュウ）) stands in Tomoe-chō, Kiryu City, Gunma Prefecture. It is a single-storey stone weaving mill built around 1935, and it was entered on Japan's national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 2 March 2006.
The shape gives the building away before the stonework does. Three steep triangles run across the roofline, one behind the other, in the profile that Japanese calls nokogiri-yane, or sawtooth roof. Weaving sheds all over the industrial world adopted it for the same reason: the steep face of each tooth could be glazed toward the north, letting in daylight that stayed even through the day and never threw the hard shadows that make it impossible to judge the colour of a warp.
Kiryu built more of these sheds than anywhere else in Japan. Something like 230 survive across the city, the largest concentration in the country according to figures compiled for a national industry review. The Horiyū mill is among the smaller ones, and among the most carefully looked after.
Its walls are Ōya stone, the pale volcanic tuff quarried at Ōya near Utsunomiya in neighbouring Tochigi Prefecture. Kiryu masons cut it into blocks roughly 91 centimetres long and 31 centimetres high and laid them stretcher-wise in level courses, a technique the Agency for Cultural Affairs records as kiriishi seisō-zumi, coursed ashlar. Stand close and the horizontal banding is very regular; the stone weathers to a soft grey-buff that photographs badly and looks wonderful in person.
Hori Yūhei and the Ribbon Weave
The man behind the mill was Hori Yūhei, who set up on this site in 1905. His success rested on a fabric of his own devising: a ribbon weave that ran rayon across a silk warp, combining the sheen of one fibre with the strength and cheapness of the other. Kiryu had woven silk since the Nara period and traded on the phrase nishi no Nishijin, higashi no Kiryu, pairing itself with Kyoto's great weaving quarter. Hori's cloth found its market, the business grew, and at its height the works employed 134 women at the looms.
What survives is a fragment of that operation. The building once ran further west; part of it came down, leaving the three bays that stand today, 11.83 metres along the east-west axis and 18.00 metres north-south, with a registered footprint of 207 square metres. City records give the reduced building as it now stands.
Look at how the roof is carried. The masons laid horizontal timbers straight onto the top of the stone walls and framed the trusses off them, with no intermediate structure. Inside, two free-standing posts stand roughly halfway along the length of the shed and take the weight of the trusses at their midpoint. It is a plain solution, and it kept the floor almost entirely clear for looms.
Why It Was Registered, and What Changed
Registration came under the criterion covering buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs summary calls the mill a good example of building conversion, which is an unusually direct compliment in a body of text that normally confines itself to structure and dimensions.
The conversion happened in 1999. Interior finishes, doorways and roof were all reworked, and the shed reopened as a hair salon. The original doorway on the south face was kept. So were the windows: tall rectangular openings, each capped by a stone lintel, each hung with a pair of outward-swinging iron shutters that have the heft of a period when fire and theft were the two things a mill owner worried about. Inner faces of the walls are plastered.
One loss is worth knowing about before you go. When the roof was recovered in sangawara pantiles, the skylights along the sawtooth faces were taken out. The silhouette is intact; the daylight that gave the silhouette its purpose is not. Reading the building means holding both facts at once.
Kiryu City added the mill to its own list of buildings that shape the city's historic character on 8 February 2022, as designation number nine. The site is owned by Jōun-ji, a temple holding it as a religious corporation, and leased to the salon that occupies it.
Visiting
This is a working business, not a museum, and the distinction matters. The interior belongs to salon customers, who book appointments in the ordinary way; visitors who simply want to see a registered cultural property should look at the exterior from the public street and leave the business to get on with its day. Kiryu City asks people not to enter the grounds of its designated buildings without permission, and to obtain permission before photographing at close quarters. Photography from the pavement raises no difficulty.
The mill sits about five minutes on foot from the south exit of JR Kiryu Station on the Ryōmō Line. Nishi-Kiryu Station, terminus of the Jōmō Electric Railway and itself a registered cultural property, lies a short walk away in the other direction.
Kiryu rewards a full day. The Kiryu Shin-machi Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings runs north of the station, and several other sawtooth mills have been converted and opened to the public, including the former Kanaya Lace works that now trades as a bakery café. The Kiryu Textile Memorial Hall and the Kinuyori Memorial Hall both interpret the industry that built all of them.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Gunma
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Former Horiyu Textile Factory (Ash Kiryu Beauty Salon)
- [ Kusatsu Onsen & Tomioka Silk Mill Heritage Tours ]
Q&A
- Can you go inside the Former Horiyū Textile Factory?
- The building operates as the hair salon Ash Kiryu. The interior is accessible to salon customers who have made an appointment. There is no general admission and no visitor entrance, so anyone not booking a treatment should view the building from the street outside.
- Where is the Former Horiyū Textile Factory and how do you get there?
- The address is 1-1126 Tomoe-chō, Kiryu City, Gunma Prefecture. It is roughly a five-minute walk from the south exit of JR Kiryu Station on the Ryōmō Line, and a similar distance from Nishi-Kiryu Station on the Jōmō Electric Railway.
- Is photography allowed at the Former Horiyū Textile Factory?
- Photographing the exterior from the public street is fine. Kiryu City asks visitors to its designated historic buildings to keep off private ground and to ask permission before photographing at close range, since most of these buildings are in active commercial use.
- What should you look for at the Former Horiyū Textile Factory?
- Three sawtooth bays in profile; Ōya stone laid as level coursed ashlar in blocks about 91 by 31 centimetres; tall lintelled windows fitted with paired iron shutters; and the original doorway on the south side, retained through the 1999 conversion.
- What else can you see near the Former Horiyū Textile Factory?
- Kiryu has roughly 230 surviving sawtooth mills, said to be the largest number of any city in Japan. The Kiryu Shin-machi preservation district, the Kiryu Textile Memorial Hall, and several converted mills open to the public are all within walking or cycling range.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Horiyū Textile Factory (Ash Kiryu Beauty Salon) / 旧堀祐織物工場（美容室アッシュキリュウ） |
|---|---|
| Location | 1-1126 Tomoe-chō, Kiryu City, Gunma Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration number 10-0151 |
| Year Designated | Registered 2 March 2006; gazetted 23 March 2006 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Single-storey stone construction, tiled roof; registered footprint 207 m². City survey records 11.83 m east-west by 18.00 m north-south |
| Owner | Jōun-ji (religious corporation) |
| Public Access | In use as a hair salon. Exterior visible from the public street; interior open to salon customers by appointment only |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs — 旧堀祐織物工場（美容室アッシュキリュウ）
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00005247
- Cultural Heritage Online — 旧堀祐織物工場（美容室アッシュキリュウ）
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/151855
- Kiryu City — 旧堀祐織物工場（美容室アッシュ）
- https://www.city.kiryu.lg.jp/kankou/bunkazai/1010700/kunitouroku/1007515.html
- Kiryu City — Buildings Shaping the Historic Character of the City
- https://www.city.kiryu.lg.jp/shisei/machi/1018368/1012377/1018437.html
- Kiryu City — Nationally Registered Cultural Properties
- https://www.city.kiryu.lg.jp/kankou/bunkazai/1010700/kunitouroku/index.html
Last verified: 2026.08.08