Takiguchi Family Residence: A Country Doctor's Estate
The Takiguchi Family Residence (瀧口家住宅, Takiguchi-ke Jūtaku) is a rural doctor's estate in Haruta-cho, Shobara City, Hiroshima Prefecture, built around a clinic that opened in about 1902; nine of its buildings and walls were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 27 March 2018.
The estate stands at a junction on the roads linking the San'in coast of the Sea of Japan with the San'yō side facing the Inland Sea, with the Honmura River running behind the property. The nine registered items are the main house, the nagayamon gate and clinic, the guest hall and connecting corridor, the storeroom, the storehouse, the barn, the woodshed, the middle gate and side wall, and the rear gate and earthen wall. They carry consecutive registration numbers 34-246 through 34-254, following a recommendation by the Council for Cultural Affairs on 17 November 2017.
The buildings span roughly a quarter of a century. The storeroom dates to the late Meiji period; the gatehouse, clinic and outer walls to around 1902; the main house and middle gate to around 1913; the storehouse, barn and woodshed to the Taishō period; and the guest hall to around 1926. Read in that order, the Takiguchi Family Residence grew outward from a medical practice into a full household compound.
How the Takiguchi Family Residence Came About
The national heritage database records a telling detail about the Takiguchi Family Residence: its earthen walls were raised by the villagers themselves, as a labor levy, to welcome a doctor to the community. The nagayamon, a gatehouse with rooms built into it, went up when the clinic opened in 1902 and held the director's living quarters and rooms for inpatients. The single-storey clinic beside it contained the consulting and delivery rooms, and the two are registered together.
This was a working rural household as well as a practice. The ground floor of the barn stabled the horse that pulled the doctor's carriage on house calls and once served as a silkworm workroom, with fodder stored upstairs. The woodshed kept firewood and charcoal on one side and pickles on the other, and its upper floor was also used for raising silkworms. In a district with heavy winter snow, these outbuildings were what carried the household through the cold months.
The Council for Cultural Affairs singled out the main house for the skill of its carpentry and described the gatehouse and clinic as a faithful example of a late-Meiji provincial hospital. The main house was registered as a model of form and design; the other eight as contributors to the historic landscape of the country. Each structure is covered in detail on its own page.
Layout of the Takiguchi Family Residence
An earthen wall with a total length of 115 metres encloses the Takiguchi Family Residence, set on a stone base laid in the hexagonal kikkō-zumi (tortoiseshell) pattern. The official recommendation credits this wall and its gates with giving the estate its imposing presence.
The gatehouse and clinic line the north side. Inside stands the main house, with the guest hall reached by a corridor to the west and the storeroom attached by a veranda off the south wing. The storehouse and barn stand along the east side, and the woodshed, set at right angles to the barn, closes off the southeast corner together with the wall. The rear gate opens on the south. A middle gate and wooden side wall run north to south between the main house and the gatehouse, separating the entrance court from the garden in front of the formal rooms and the guest hall.
From outside, the clearest views are along the east side, where the storehouse rises flush with the wall, and at the southeast corner anchored by the woodshed: long runs of white plaster and dark roof tile above the stonework.
Visiting the Takiguchi Family Residence
The Takiguchi Family Residence is still a private home. Neither the national database nor Shobara City's heritage pages list any open days or visitor arrangements, so treat the grounds and interiors as closed. View the buildings from the public road only, do not step through the gates or peer over the walls, and keep photography to exteriors taken from the street without catching residents or visitors in the frame.
The nearest stop is Akagawa (赤川) on the Bihoku Kotsu local bus network, about 1 to 2 minutes' walk from the estate. Services from central Shobara are infrequent, so check the route and timetable with Bihoku Kotsu before setting out. The surrounding lanes are narrow and no visitor parking is advertised; if you come by car, do not park in front of the house.
Enquiries about cultural properties in Shobara, including the Takiguchi Family Residence, are handled by the Cultural Promotion Section of the city's Lifelong Learning Division (tel. 0824-73-1189, Japanese only).
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: 瀧口家住宅主屋 (Main House)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00012237
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: 瀧口家住宅長屋門及び診療所 (Nagayamon Gate and Clinic)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00012245
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: 瀧口家住宅裏門及び土塀 (Rear Gate and Earthen Wall)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00012244
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: 瀧口家住宅納屋 (Barn)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00012241
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: 瀧口家住宅木小屋 (Woodshed)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00012242
- Cultural Heritage Online: 瀧口家住宅主屋
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/365127
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Registration of Tangible Cultural Properties (Buildings), 17 November 2017 (PDF, Japanese)
- https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/yukei_kenzobutsu/pdf/r1392281_21.pdf
- Shobara City, Registered Cultural Properties (Japanese)
- https://www.city.shobara.hiroshima.jp/main/education/shogaigakushu/cat02/02/post_192.html
- Bihoku Kotsu, Route Map (Japanese)
- https://bihoku.co.jp/about/rosen/
- Yahoo! Map: 瀧口家住宅主屋
- https://map.yahoo.co.jp/v3/place/LiuPczzqULw
Last verified: 2026.09.25
Basic Information
| Name | Takiguchi Family Residence |
|---|---|
| Location | 1-1 Iwami, Haruta-cho, Shobara City, Hiroshima Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (9) |
| Coordinates | 34.81597, 133.04534 |
