Katayama Family Residence Well House

A Stone-Lined Well Beside the Path

The Katayama Family Residence Well House (片山家住宅井戸屋, Katayama-ke Jūtaku Idoya) is a small roofed shelter over a well, built in the early Taisho era, shortly after 1912, in Nitta Tameikecho, Ota City, Gunma Prefecture, and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2004.

It stands on the homestead of the Katayamas, the old headman family of Tameike village, halfway along the path from the gatehouse to the earth-floored entrance of the main house, on its east side. At 3.9 square metres it is the smallest of the six listed buildings: little more than a tiled roof over a well.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs considers the Katayama Family Residence Well House valuable for understanding how a prosperous farming family laid out its homestead. Anyone walking from the gate to the house passed it, a sign that the place where water was drawn was built squarely into the daily route through the property.

Why It Was Registered

The well house received registration number 10-0117 in the 40th round of national registrations, dated 2004/2/17, for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The national database classes it not as a building but as an "other structure".

A well was indispensable to a household. Here the stone well lining and its roofed shelter survive together, and they keep their original relationship to the main house and the gatehouse. That makes it a concrete example of how the well fitted into the homestead as a whole, which is likely why it was registered.

What to Look For

A shelter on a stone plinth

The Idoya stands on a plinth of Yabuzuka stone with its ridge running north to south. It measures roughly 1 ken 1 shaku by 1 ken, the shaku being the traditional foot, and its gable roof is laid with sangawara-buki pan tiles. Small as it is, it is tiled like the main house and lifted off the ground on its stone base.

A stone shaft and a granite curb

The well shaft is lined with Yabuzuka stone stacked into a cylinder, and on top sits a curb of granite blocks laid in an igeta, the square frame shaped like the character 井 that forms the mouth of a Japanese well. The contrast is worth noticing: local stone for the shaft, harder granite where buckets were set down and people leaned over.

Yabuzuka stone, named after the Yabuzuka district of Ota, also forms the footings of the privy on the same property.

Dating

The Agency dates the Katayama Family Residence Well House to the early Taisho era, while Ota City estimates it to the end of Meiji or the Taisho era. Either way it came some four decades after the main house and gatehouse, apparently put in together with the privy as part of the homestead's outdoor amenities.

Visiting

The well house is part of a private home and is not open; as of October 2026 we found no announcement of open days. It stands inside the gatehouse, and we have not confirmed whether it can be seen from outside the property. Please do not walk through the gate, and respect the residents' privacy.

Photographs in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database show the exterior.