Miyake Family Residence

About the Miyake Family Residence

The Miyake Family Residence (三宅家住宅, Miyake-ke Jūtaku) is a late Edo-period merchant's estate, dated to between 1751 and 1830, in Inarimachi, Kaita Town, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, whose six buildings (main house, clothing storehouse, new storehouse, old rice storehouse, new rice storehouse and rear nagayamon gate) became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on May 2, 2017.

According to Kaita Town's newsletter, the Council for Cultural Affairs recommended the registration on November 18, 2016, making the Miyake estate the first Registered Tangible Cultural Property anywhere in Aki District. The council valued the buildings as a group that shows two things at once: the townscape of the old San'yōdō highway, also called the Saigoku Kaidō, and the history of Kaita as a place that prospered by passing goods between land and water.

All six were registered under the same criterion, contribution to the historic landscape of the nation. The point is less the quality of any single building than the survival of a complete merchant's compound running from the highway to the riverbank.

The Shintakuya Family and the Town of Kaita

The Miyake family traded under the house name Shintakuya. Hiroshima Prefecture's history portal describes the main line of the family as landholders who, from the late Edo period into the modern era, also ran a money-lending business. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that one of the storehouses held rice paid in by tenant farmers, which fits the picture of a rural merchant house that owned farmland and lent money.

In the Edo period Kaita was a post town on the Saigoku Kaidō, the main road from Kyoto to western Japan. The Miyake plot had the highway on its north side and, on its south side, a riverbank along a former course of the Seno River. Kaita Town's heritage page explains that a passage through the estate linked the shop-front main house on the highway with the rear gate facing the river harbor.

That north-south layout is exactly what the phrase about trade between land and water refers to. Business was done on the road side, and goods came and went on the river side.

Layout and Building Dates

The Miyake Family Residence occupies a long, narrow plot running north to south. The main house stands at the north end facing the old highway, and a passage leads south from it between two rows of storehouses. Halfway down, the clothing storehouse on the east faces the new storehouse on the west; further south, the new rice storehouse on the east faces the old rice storehouse on the west. The rear nagayamon gate closes off the southern end.

The buildings fall into two periods. The main house, clothing storehouse, old rice storehouse and rear gate date from the late Edo period; the new storehouse and new rice storehouse were built in the late Meiji era, between 1898 and 1912. The main house was altered in the mid-Meiji era, between 1883 and 1897. The names "old" and "new" match this sequence.

• Main house (late Edo, altered mid-Meiji; register no. 34-0207)
• Clothing storehouse (late Edo; register no. 34-0208)
• New storehouse (late Meiji; register no. 34-0209)
• Old rice storehouse (late Edo; register no. 34-0210)
• New rice storehouse (late Meiji; register no. 34-0211)
• Rear nagayamon gate (late Edo; register no. 34-0212)

A branch family's house adjoins the main house on the east. Kaita Town reports that part of it was built at the end of the Edo period as a shop building for the main line of the family. It is not among the registered structures, but it belongs to the same story.

Kaita Town ranks the Miyake estate, together with the Former Chiba Family Residence further along the same old highway, as one of the few Edo-period townhouse complexes left in Kaita. The Chiba family held official posts at the post station, so between them the two houses represent both the administrative and the commercial sides of the old town.

Visiting and Access

The Miyake Family Residence is a private home, and neither the grounds nor the interiors are open. Kaita Town's heritage pages list no open days or visiting arrangements (checked September 27, 2026). What a visitor can see is the exterior from the public road.

The clearest view is the front of the main house on the old Saigoku Kaidō. The four storehouses stand inside the plot along the internal passage, so expect to glimpse only part of them from the highway. We found no guidance from the owner or the town on photography. Since this is someone's home, please do not point a camera through the entrance or at windows; the view from across the road is the respectful one.

The nearest station is Kaitaichi on the JR San'yō Main Line and Kure Line. The Miyake Family Residence lies northeast of the station, about 300 meters in a straight line, or roughly a 5-minute walk. Head north from the station to the old highway, and the gable end of the main house appears on the south side of the road. There is no parking for visitors.