Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten

What Is Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten?

Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten (黒田清右衛門商店) is the premises of a hardware wholesaler founded in 1765 in Honmachi 2-chome, Miki City, Hyogo Prefecture, where 11 structures built between the end of the Edo period and about 1927 (the shop and main house, a reception wing, an annex, six storehouses, an inner storehouse and an outer wall) were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on December 5, 2019.

The firm still trades as Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten Co., Ltd., selling tools wholesale from the same address. The name is read Kuroda Seiuemon, a reading confirmed both by the government database and by the company's own romanization. The 11 entries carry consecutive registration numbers, 28-0720 to 28-0730. Nine were registered as contributing to the historic landscape of the nation; the reception wing and the annex, the two rooms built for guests, were registered as models of design. All 11 are Registered Tangible Cultural Properties.

The government records date each building separately. The shop and main house is late Edo, refitted in the early Showa period. Five storehouses (east, southeast corner, south, southwest corner and west) are early Meiji, the miso storehouse mid-Meiji, the reception wing late Meiji, the annex late Taisho with an extension of about 1927, and the inner storehouse and outer wall about 1927. Read in sequence, they show one merchant house adding to its premises over the best part of a century.

Miki Hardware and the Kuroda Family

Miki is still known across Japan for carpenters' tools: saws, planes, chisels and knives. According to a 2019 catalogue by the Miki City History Museum, toolmaking took off in the town in the middle and late 18th century, and with it came a split between the smiths who made the tools and the brokers who sold them on. In 1765 a merchant trading as Sakuya Seiuemon, the head of the Kuroda family, opened as one of these hardware brokers.

The museum describes Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten as the earliest of Miki's hardware wholesalers and the only one of them still in business. The company calls itself the oldest hardware wholesaler in the city, and its stock is still built around Miki carpenters' tools.

In a Miki City newsletter, the company president says the firm was one of only two wholesalers in Miki town allowed to deal directly with the Edo market. He also suggests why a giant saw hangs over the shop: Miki's large two-man timber saws (maebiki-noko) won a reputation in Edo as the best in Japan, so the family made one its sign. Both points come from the family's own account.

Shortly before registration, from October 26 to December 22, 2019, the history museum held an exhibition on Miki hardware and the Kuroda family, showing trade licences, old documents and photographs kept in the house.

How the Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten Premises Are Laid Out

The Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten premises face north onto the Himeji-michi, one of the old roads through Miki. The shop and main house stands on the street, an outer wall runs west from it, and the inner storehouse closes the northwest corner. Miki City describes these three together as the street front of the house.

Behind the shop, the reception wing joins the main house at an angle on its southwest side, and the annex stands toward the north end of the west boundary. The rooms for receiving guests are therefore split between two buildings, one behind the house and one on the west side.

The storehouses follow the property line in an unbroken chain. The miso storehouse is attached to the east end of the main house's south side; the east storehouse runs south from it; the southeast corner storehouse turns the corner; the south storehouse runs west; the southwest corner storehouse turns again; and the west storehouse, 18.3 m long, heads back north. Storehouses enclose the east, south and west sides, and the city notes that they have held stock, household goods and documents.

The house also anchors the streetscape. A Miki City newsletter reports that Hyogo Prefecture chose Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten as an Important Landscape Building in fiscal 2020, and in March 2023 part of Honmachi 2-chome, including the shop, became the first Landscape Formation Priority Zone in the prefecture.

Visiting Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten

Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten is a working wholesale business, and all 11 registered structures stand on its private premises. Neither the company nor Miki City announces any public opening of the interiors (checked October 2, 2026). What a visitor can see is the street front from the Himeji-michi: the shop and main house with its saw sign, the outer wall and the inner storehouse. The storehouses, reception wing and annex lie behind and do not face the street.

Keep photography to the exterior from the street, and stand clear of the shop entrance while the business is open. Guided town walks organized by Miki City have included Kuroda Seiuemon Shoten, for example a historic buildings walk in 2019 and volunteer-guided walks in 2024.

By train, take the Kobe Electric Railway Ao Line to Miki Station; the company says the shop is about 3 minutes on foot across Fukuari Bridge. By car, it is 5 to 7 minutes from the Miki-Ono interchange on the Sanyo Expressway, following National Route 175 toward central Miki.