Kirei Sake Brewery No. 5 Storehouse

An earthen storehouse across the lane

Kirei Sake Brewery No. 5 Storehouse (亀齢酒造五号蔵, Kirei Shuzō Gogō-gura) is a sake storehouse in Saijo Honmachi, Higashihiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture, built in the Taisho era (1912 to 1926), altered around 1964, and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 1 August 2016. It stands on a separate plot across a lane to the northeast of Kirei's main plot: a two-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse with a tiled roof and a building area of 597 square metres.

There are two wings. The central wing is a long two-storey block running east to west. North of it, parallel, is the north wing, built as an extension of the central wing and filling the plot right to its edge.

The record of its dates does not agree with itself. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the period as Taisho with an extension around 1964, yet its Western-calendar field describes the same 1964 work as a relocation. The Agency's own description, of a north wing added as an extension of the central wing, points to an extension, but we have found no source that settles the question.

Why it was listed: a white wall and a skirt of boards

Kirei Sake Brewery No. 5 Storehouse was registered as a contribution to the historical landscape of the nation. The Agency credits the north wing in particular: its outer walls are white Shikkui plaster, and the lower part is clad in sasarako-shitami, overlapping horizontal boards held in place by vertical battens notched to fit each step. That wall runs along the lane, and the Agency treats it as part of the streetscape.

Sasarako-shitami is a form of Shitami-itabari weatherboarding. The notched battens follow the stepped profile of the boards, so the lower wall is ridged and shadowed while the plaster above is smooth. The result is a wall that changes texture sharply at waist height.

At 597 square metres, the No. 5 Storehouse is second in size only to the No. 1 Storehouse on the main plot, at 642 square metres. Building on this scale off the main plot shows how far the brewery had spread by the Taisho era and after.

What to look for: two different roof ends

The central wing's roof ends differently at each end. The east end is a plain gable in the Kirizuma-zukuri manner, its triangular end wall rising straight up. The west end is Irimoya-zukuri: the lower part of the roof wraps around the end, and only a small gable face remains near the top.

Mixing gable and hip-and-gable ends on one roof is not unusual, but side by side the difference is striking. The east end shows a flat wall; the west end shows layered roof. Walk around both ends of the central wing to compare them.

The north wing runs its ridge parallel to the central wing's, so from some angles the two roofs appear stacked one behind the other.

Visiting

Kirei Sake Brewery No. 5 Storehouse is part of a working brewery and its interior is closed. The north wing stands along the lane, so its white plaster wall and board-clad base can be seen from the public road.

How much of the central wing's two roof ends you can see depends on where you stand in the surrounding streets. Take photographs from the road and do not enter the grounds.