An Ironworker's House on the Old Main Street
Look closely at the lattice screens across the front of this two-storey townhouse and you notice that the metal fittings holding them are unusually large and boldly worked. That is not incidental. The house belonged to the Ihara family, casters of iron and bronze who ran their trade in the market town of Shiraichi, and the oversized kazari-kanagu (decorative metal fittings) on the ground-floor lattice function almost as a signboard for the craft practised inside.
Built around 1871, in the first years of the Meiji period, the main house (omoya) faces south onto Honmachi, the old main street. Its hipped-and-gabled roof of pantiles, a form Japanese carpenters call irimoya-zukuri with the ridge running parallel to the street (hira-iri), marks it as one of the larger merchant houses along the road. Inside, the plan divides cleanly: an earthen-floored work space (doma) runs down the west side, while three rows of rooms fill the east, the easternmost being a suite of linked formal reception rooms. Projecting lattice bays (degoshi) frame the entrance and reappear at the upper windows, giving the street front its layered, screened look. The building covers about 319 square metres.
The Hon-Ihara, Casters of Metal
The family that built this house was known within its wider clan as the Hon-Ihara, the senior Ihara line, and its members were imoji, metal casters. The trade is said to have begun when an early ancestor apprenticed to Ueki Genbei, a caster in Kaita in old Aki district, then set up on his own during the Bunka era of 1804 to 1818. Family accounts hold that the Ihara cast lanterns presented to the Kyoto Imperial Palace, produced the bronze lantern at the hitasaki of Itsukushima Shrine on nearby Miyajima, and that a late-Edo head of the house was appointed chief caster to the Hiroshima domain. Each successive head took the name Sōjūrō.
Metalworking outlasted the Edo period here. Through the Meiji years and into the early Shōwa era the family kept a foundry on the hillside north of the house. The site of that works still survives on the slope behind, connected to the residence by a broad flight of stone steps and a gate. The foundry has since closed, but the house it built remains, its plain, well-made carpentry standing for the confident prosperity of a Meiji trading family.
Registration, and What to Look For
In March 2025 the main house was entered on Japan's national register of tangible cultural properties, together with three other structures on the same plot: the detached quarters and tea room, the three-storey storehouse, and the gate and wall. The four were registered as elements that contribute to the historic character of the national landscape, and together they hold down the Meiji-period stretch of Honmachi. The residence is not to be confused with the separate Ihara Family Residence a little to the west at Shiraichi 1082, a Taishō-period house belonging to a different branch of the family.
The main house now operates as a restaurant, so the interior once closed to outsiders can be seen over a meal, with the earthen entrance space and the old reception rooms still in use. The other buildings on the plot are largely private; the town asks visitors to view them from the street and to remember that the whole block is privately owned and lived with. Shiraichi rewards an unhurried walk. Red-tiled townhouses climb a gentle slope for roughly 300 metres along the former highway, and the Ihara house sits among them on Sakaemachi, in a town that grew as a market and staging point below the medieval Hakusan castle.
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Q&A
- What did the Ihara family do for a living?
- They were imoji, casters of iron and bronze. The family is said to have supplied lanterns to the Kyoto Imperial Palace and to Itsukushima Shrine, and kept a foundry on the hill behind the house into the early twentieth century.
- When was the main house built?
- Around 1871, in the early Meiji period. It is a timber, two-storey, pantile-roofed townhouse of about 319 square metres.
- Can visitors go inside?
- Yes. The main house runs as a restaurant, so you can see the interior over a meal. The three other structures on the plot are mostly not open, so please view them from the street.
- Is this the same as the other Ihara house in Shiraichi?
- No. A separate registered house at Shiraichi 1082, dated to the Taishō period, belongs to a different Ihara branch. This one is the Ihara Sōjūrō Residence, the ironcasters' house.
- How do I reach Shiraichi?
- The closest station is Shiraichi on the JR Sanyō Line, about a 30-minute walk from the townscape. By car it is roughly 10 to 15 minutes from the Takaya or Saijō interchanges on the Sanyō Expressway.
Basic Information
| Name | Ihara Sōjūrō Family Residence, Main House (Ihara Sōjūrō-ke Jūtaku Omoya) |
|---|---|
| Location | 1080 Shiraichi, Takaya-chō, Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture |
| Category | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Building); registered 13 March 2025 |
| Registration No. | 34-0314 |
| Date | Around 1871 (early Meiji period) |
| Structure | Timber, two storeys, pantile roof; building area approx. 319 m²; one building |
| Access / use | Now in use as a restaurant; other buildings on the plot are privately owned and partly closed to the public |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties (Agency for Cultural Affairs) — Ihara Sōjūrō Family Residence Main House
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00015375
- Cultural Heritage Online — Ihara Sōjūrō Family Residence Main House
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/622509
- City of Higashihiroshima — Registration of the Ihara Sōjūrō and Ōfuji residences
- https://www.city.higashihiroshima.lg.jp/soshiki/kyoikuiinkaishogaigakushu/3/16/1/41583.html
- Higashihiroshima Tourism (Higashiru) — The Shiraichi townscape
- https://higashihiroshima-kanko.jp/spot/shiraichi-townscape/
Last verified: 2026.07.04