Twenty-eight square meters behind the office
The Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Dyeing Workshop (旧株式会社金芳織物工場染色場) is a single-story timber workshop at 1-96-2 Higashi-Hisakata-cho in Kiryu, Gunma Prefecture, built in 1919 and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 4 August 2015.
It is by some distance the smallest listed building on the site. The registered floor area comes to 28 square meters, roughly the size of a modest apartment, and it sits directly against the rear wall of the company office.
Weaving towns are usually remembered through their looms. Dyeing is the other half of the work and leaves far less behind, because a dye house is hot, wet and hard on its own fabric. Vats, steam, running water and spilled color wear a building down in a way that a weaving floor does not. Small structures of this kind were replaced rather than repaired, which is why so few of them are still standing in Kiryu.
A Western truss over a Japanese workshop
The plan is plain: a gable roof of the Kirizuma-zukuri type running east to west, covered in sheet iron, with an unusually generous span between the beams for a building of this footprint.
The roof structure is where it gets interesting. The Agency for Cultural Affairs record specifies a king post truss, the Western carpentry system in which a single vertical post hangs from the ridge and ties the tie-beam up to it. Japanese builders adopted the form during the Meiji era, and by 1919 it had worked its way down from railway sheds and mills into a 28-square-metre outbuilding at the back of a provincial weaving yard.
Four skylights are cut into the roof slope, and glazed windows are set at chosen points in the walls. Both serve the work rather than the appearance. Steam and fumes rise out; daylight comes down onto the vats. Anyone matching a dye lot by eye needs to see the color properly, and this was the cheapest way to give them that.
Registered seventeen years after its neighbors
The Kanayoshi weaving shed and office were entered on the register in 1998. The Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Dyeing Workshop had to wait until 2015, when it was added along with the main house and the storehouse of the Kanaya family, the house dating from 1931 and the storehouse from 1873.
The criterion applied to the dyeing workshop was the one covering buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country, which is a different test from the one used for the brick shed in 1998. The register works from three such criteria, and the choice among them says something about how each building was read. The brick shed was valued as a thing that could not be built again; this workshop was valued for the scene it helps make.
That reading is fair. On its own the building would be unremarkable. Standing where it does, at the back of the office, alongside a brick weaving shed of the same year, it completes a working yard of the kind that once filled this quarter of Kiryu: house, office, weaving floor, dye house, all on one plot. The Agency for Cultural Affairs description places it beside the sawtooth shed as one of the two surviving buildings from the company's founding period.
Kiryu has since listed it with the Kanaya family house as the sixteenth entry on the city's own register of structures forming the historic townscape.
Seeing the dyeing workshop
The Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Dyeing Workshop is not open inside, and neither the city nor the current owner advertises interior access. It also stands behind the office rather than facing the street, which makes it the hardest of the four listed buildings here to get a clear view of.
The grounds themselves can be entered without charge while the bakery and café in the neighboring weaving shed is trading, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with a closure over the new year. Staff at the counter can point out where the workshop stands. There are 31 parking spaces behind the buildings.
JR Kiryu Station on the Ryōmō Line is about 18 minutes away on foot, or 8 by taxi. From the Tōbu Isesaki Line, Shin-Kiryu Station is around 13 minutes by car. Drivers on the Kita-Kantō Expressway should come off at Ōta-Kiryu and allow about 20 minutes.
No photography restriction is published for the grounds. The building rewards a look at its roof line more than its walls, so a position that lets you see the ridge and the skylights is worth finding. The Kiryu Shinmachi Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings lies a short walk to the south-west, and the whole of this quarter still reads as a weaving district.
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Q&A
- Is the Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Dyeing Workshop open to visitors?
- The interior is not open, and no interior access is advertised by the city or the owner. The grounds can be entered free of charge while the café in the adjoining weaving shed is trading, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
- When was the Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Dyeing Workshop built and registered?
- It was built in 1919, the same year as the brick weaving shed on the same plot, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 4 August 2015. Its neighbors the shed and the office had been registered in 1998.
- What was the Kanayoshi dyeing workshop used for?
- Dyeing yarn and cloth for the mill. Four skylights in the roof and glazed windows placed at intervals along the walls let steam out and daylight in, which mattered when color had to be judged by eye.
- How big is the Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Dyeing Workshop?
- The registered building area is 28 square meters, single-story, in timber with a sheet-iron gable roof running east to west. It is the smallest of the listed buildings on the site.
- How do I reach the Kanayoshi dyeing workshop from Kiryu Station?
- About 18 minutes on foot from JR Kiryu Station on the Ryōmō Line, or 8 minutes by taxi. By car it is roughly 20 minutes from the Ōta-Kiryu interchange, with 31 parking spaces on the site.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Dyeing Workshop (旧株式会社金芳織物工場染色場) |
|---|---|
| Location | 1-96-2 Higashi-Hisakata-cho and adjoining lots, Kiryu, Gunma Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) |
| Year Designated | Registered on 4 August 2015 (Heisei 27) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Building area 28 square meters; wooden, single-story, sheet-iron roof |
| Owner | Lupin Ltd. |
| Public Access | Exterior only; the interior is not open. The grounds can be entered while the café in the adjoining shed is trading, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. No charge |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Database of Designated Cultural Properties: Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Dyeing Workshop
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00010560
- Kiryu City: Former Kanaya Family Residence and Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company
- https://www.city.kiryu.lg.jp/kankou/bunkazai/1010700/kunitouroku/1013382.html
- Kiryu City: Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company (registered cultural properties)
- https://www.city.kiryu.lg.jp/kankou/bunkazai/1010700/kunitouroku/1001996.html
- Kiryu City: Structures Forming the Historic Townscape
- https://www.city.kiryu.lg.jp/shisei/machi/1018368/1012377/1018437.html
- Bakery Cafe Renga (site operator): store information
- https://www.kiryu-renga.jp/
Last verified: 2026.09.09