Hida Family Residence Gate-Storehouse: Where the Estate Meets the Lane
The building that presents the Hida estate to the street does two jobs at once. Standing along the eastern edge of the plot in Ōcho, on the island of Ōsakishimojima, the gate-storehouse is a nagayamon-style structure: a long gatehouse whose central passage lets people through while the rooms to either side do the work of storage. Its north end joins directly onto the main house, so the boundary of the estate and its storage capacity are folded into a single form.
Built in the late Taishō era, between 1912 and 1925, it is a two-story timber building under a hip-and-gable roof of pantile. The gateway opens at the center of the ground floor; the floors on either side are partitioned into small rooms and used for storage. Combining a gate and a storehouse in one building is an uncommon arrangement, and it is part of what makes the structure worth recording.
Why It Is a Registered Cultural Property
The gate-storehouse joined the national register on March 18, 2003, gazetted that April in the 36th round, under registration number 34-0039. Like most of the compound, it was listed as a model of its type. Its interest lies in the way it captures the design sensibility of the Taishō years in a working farm building.
The east face, the side that meets the road, is built in the shinkabe manner, with the timber frame left exposed. The lower part of that ground floor, though, is clad in battened weatherboarding of the sasarako type, a horizontal siding held by slender vertical battens. The mix of exposed frame above and boarded base below shows how Taishō builders handled a street-facing wall: functional, but composed with an eye to how it would read from the lane.
What to Look For
Approach along the eastern lane and this is the face of the estate you meet first. The central passage draws the eye through; the flanking storage rooms give the building its length, in the manner of the nagayamon gates that fronted many landholding houses. It is the threshold and the strongroom in one.
Look closely at the ground-floor wall on the road side. The band of sasarako weatherboarding along the base, set against the exposed timbers above, is the detail that dates the building to the Taishō period as surely as any record. Together with the small Kannon hall standing just to its south, the gate-storehouse forms the estate's public edge, the part of the Hida compound the village saw every day.
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Q&A
- What is a gate-storehouse?
- It is a single building that serves as both an entrance gate and a storehouse. Here the passage runs through the center of the ground floor, while the rooms on either side, on both levels, are used for storage.
- What is the nagayamon form it resembles?
- A nagayamon is a long gatehouse with rooms flanking a central passage, historically used at samurai and landholding houses. The Hida gate-storehouse takes that long, room-lined shape and puts it to use for storage.
- What is sasarako weatherboarding?
- It is a horizontal board cladding held in place by thin vertical battens. On the gate-storehouse it lines the base of the road-facing ground floor, below the exposed timber frame, and helps date the building to the Taishō era.
- Is it open to visitors?
- No. The Hida Residence is a private property, not open to the public, though the gate-storehouse can be seen clearly from the eastern lane. The Mitarai preservation district on the same island offers open historic streetscapes nearby.
- How does it fit with the other buildings?
- The gate-storehouse defines the eastern edge of the estate and abuts the main house at its north end. With the storehouse, detached wing and Kannon hall, it completes a compound that grew across the Edo, Meiji and Taishō periods.
Basic Information
| Name | Hida Family Residence Gate-Storehouse (Hida-ke Jūtaku Kuramon) |
|---|---|
| Location | 5368 Ōcho, Yutaka-machi, Kure City, Hiroshima Prefecture |
| Category | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (building) |
| Registered | March 18, 2003 (gazetted April 8, 2003); registration no. 34-0039 |
| Period | Late Taishō era (1912-1925) |
| Count & size | 1 building; wooden, two stories, tiled roof; building area about 121 square meters |
| Access | Private residence, not open to the public; viewable from the eastern lane |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs — National Cultural Properties Database, Hida Family Residence Gate-Storehouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00003309
- Kure City — Cultural Properties, Hida Family Residence Gate-Storehouse
- https://www.city.kure.lg.jp/site/bunkazai/kunitouyubun-10.html
- Kure City — Cultural Properties of Kure (index)
- https://www.city.kure.lg.jp/site/bunkazai/
Last verified: 2026.07.11