Water Tower, Hirao Family Residence
The Hirao Family Residence in the Morio district of Toyooka reads as a record of successive generations. A family of great village headmen and leading Tajima landowners, the Hirao raised their main house in 1896 and set older storehouses and quarters around it, adding walls, gates and outbuildings from the Edo period through the early Showa era across an estate of about 4,000 square metres.
The Structure Itself
Just east of the well house rises a slender steel water tower, the one frankly industrial note in an estate otherwise built of timber, plaster and tile. Its trapezoidal frame is assembled from L-section steel posts, tied horizontally into two tiers and stiffened with flat-steel diagonal braces. On the lower tier, the side facing the well is turned into a shallow arch, a small concession to form in an otherwise purely functional structure.
At the top sits a riveted steel-plate tank, roughly 0.95 metres square and one metre tall. The Agency for Cultural Affairs commentary gives the overall height as about four metres, while the register's structural field records 5.5 metres; the difference likely reflects where the measurement begins and ends. Either way, the tower belongs to the early twentieth century, when the household added piped water to a compound whose oldest wells had served it since the Edo period.
Why It Was Registered
The estate was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2008, recognising how completely the framework of a great landowner's compound, its main house, quarters, storehouses, walls and waterworks, survives here as a single ensemble. Each registered element earns its place less as a solitary monument than as one part of that larger, coherent whole.
Seeing It Today
The Hirao Family Residence remains a private home and is, as a rule, not open to the public. Visitors should not expect interior access, and the family's privacy asks for a respectful distance. The exterior and its river setting can be appreciated from the public road nearby, and travellers to this corner of Tajima can pair a passing look with the region's more accessible sights: the willow-lined hot-spring town of Kinosaki Onsen, the old castle town of Izushi with its soba and clock tower, and the columnar basalt cliffs of Genbudo Park along the Maruyama River.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Hyogo
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Hirao Family Residence Water Tower
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Q&A
- Can I go inside the Hirao Family Residence?
- No. The residence is privately owned and generally closed to the public. You can view its exterior and river setting from the adjacent public road, but please respect the residents' privacy.
- What is this steel tower doing in a traditional estate?
- It is an early-twentieth-century water tower. The household pumped water up into the raised tank so that it could be piped by gravity to the kitchen and other parts of the compound, a modern upgrade layered onto wells that had been in use since the Edo period.
- How old is this part of the estate?
- It dates to the early Showa period (1926–1988). The estate as a whole was built up across generations, from Edo-period storehouses through the 1896 main house to early-Showa additions, so its elements span more than a century.
- What else can I see nearby?
- Toyooka offers Kinosaki Onsen for its hot springs, the castle town of Izushi for soba and historic streets, and Genbudo Park for its dramatic columnar basalt, all within easy reach of the Morio district.
Basic Information
| Name | Water Tower, Hirao Family Residence (平尾家住宅給水塔) |
|---|---|
| Location | 958 Ando, Morio, Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (building) |
| Registered | 7 March 2008 (gazetted 19 March 2008) |
| Count | 1基 |
| Structure | Steel frame, sheet-iron roof; height 5.5 m |
| Period | early Showa period (1926–1988) |
| Ownership / Access | Privately owned; not open to the public |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs — 平尾家住宅給水塔
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00006909
- Cultural Heritage Online — Main House, Hirao Family Residence
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/186783
- The Tajima (Tajima Encyclopedia) — Hirao Family Residence
- https://the-tajima.com/spot/393/
Last verified: 2026.07.02