A Large Machiya Facing the Old Kyo Highway
Odagaki Shoten Store (小田垣商店店舗, also written Odagaki Shōten Tenpo) is a late Edo-period merchant townhouse in Tateimachi, Tamba-Sasayama City, Hyogo Prefecture, entered on Japan's national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 2 October 2007. It faces west onto the old Kyo Kaidō, the road that runs north to south through the commercial quarter east of Sasayama Castle.
The building measures roughly 15 metres along the ridge and 12 metres in depth, covering about 193 square metres. It has a gabled roof of sangawara pantiles and is entered from the long eaves side, an arrangement called hirairi. Above the ground floor sits a tsushi-nikai, the low mezzanine storey used in older townhouses for storage rather than living space. The northern half of the interior is a doma, a floor of packed earth left at ground level so that carts, sacks and wet work could come straight in off the road.
Look up at the eaves and you will see them sealed in plaster rather than left as exposed timber. This finish, nurigome, gave the front a heavy, fire-resistant face. On the gable ends, thin projecting courses of tile called mizukiri-gawara throw rainwater clear of the plaster below. Both details belong to the merchant architecture of the Tamba basin and the Inland Sea provinces, where wet winters punish unprotected earthen walls.
The shop that occupies it, Odagaki Shoten, was founded in Kyōhō 19 (1734). The house dealt in other goods before shifting to seeds and beans at the beginning of the Meiji era, and it has traded in Tamba black soybeans ever since. Ten buildings on the company grounds carry national registration, and this one, registration number 28-0283, is the piece that meets the street.
Why It Was Registered
Japan's registration system for Tangible Cultural Properties, introduced in 1996, is lighter than designation as an Important Cultural Property. It asks that a building be at least fifty years old and meet one of three tests. Odagaki Shoten Store was registered under the first of them: that the building contributes to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a large machiya forming the core of the highway townscape.
That phrasing repays attention. The registration is not primarily about a rare joint or a famous carpenter. It is about the building's role in a street, and about how much of Sasayama's commercial past survives in one place. The castle town was laid out from 1609, and the merchant quarters were planted along the routes leaving the castle. Tateimachi sits on one of those routes.
A short walk south brings you to Kawaramachi, where the surviving houses are overwhelmingly tsumairi, entered through the gable end, with narrow frontages running deep into long lots. That district was selected as a national Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings in 2004. Odagaki Shoten Store, by contrast, presents its long side to the road. Standing at the corner and comparing the two habits of building is one of the more instructive things a visitor can do here.
The property is also a component of a Japan Heritage story built around the Dekansho folk song, which lists Tamba Sasayama's produce, black soybeans among them. The Agency's entry for the story notes the plastered nuriya exterior and the eighteenth-century merchant compound it helps compose.
Visiting: What Changed in 2021
In April 2021 the compound reopened after a major restoration, and the store building now holds a retail shop with a café, Odagaki Zudō, alongside it. The work was carried out by New Material Research Laboratory, the practice led by the artist Hiroshi Sugimoto and the architect Tomoyuki Sakakida. Five of the ten registered buildings were treated in this first phase, with further phases planned for the remainder.
The most striking decision is underfoot. The doma was paved with salvaged machiya-ishi, granite paving lifted from Kyoto townhouses that had been broken up or rebuilt. The stone is the faintly rust-coloured granite quarried around the Inland Sea and favoured in Kyoto, and because the pieces come from different quarries and different decades, the floor reads as a slow drift of tones rather than a single colour. At the centre of the room stands a jujube-shaped stone water basin, once a garden fitting, now the point where beans are weighed out and goods are displayed.
Practical notes. The shop keeps 9:30 to 17:30 and closes only over the New Year period. The café runs 11:00 to 17:00 with last orders at 16:00, and closes on Thursdays, moving to the next weekday when a Thursday falls on a public holiday. There is a car park across the road. From JR Sasayamaguchi Station on the Fukuchiyama Line, take a Shinki Green Bus bound for Sasayama Eigyōsho and get off at Kamitachimachi, about twenty minutes; the building is a minute's walk away. Drivers reach it in roughly ten minutes from the Tannan-Sasayamaguchi interchange on the Maizuru-Wakasa Expressway.
No formal photography rules are published. Since the interior is a working shop and café, the courteous course is to ask staff before photographing indoors and to keep other customers out of frame. The exterior can be photographed freely from the public road, and the west elevation takes late afternoon light well.
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Q&A
- Can visitors go inside Odagaki Shoten Store, and is there an admission fee?
- Yes, and there is no admission charge. The building operates as a retail shop, open 9:30 to 17:30 and closed only over the New Year. You enter as a customer rather than as a ticket holder, which means the interior is accessible on almost any day of the year.
- When was Odagaki Shoten Store registered as a cultural property, and what is its registration number?
- It was registered on 2 October 2007, in the fifty-sixth round of registrations, and carries registration number 28-0283. Nine other buildings on the same grounds were registered at the same time, including the workshop behind it and the former sake brewery further east.
- How do I reach Odagaki Shoten Store by public transport?
- Take the JR Fukuchiyama Line to Sasayamaguchi Station, then a Shinki Green Bus bound for Sasayama Eigyōsho. Alight at Kamitachimachi after about twenty minutes and walk a short distance. Buses are not frequent, so check return times before you set out.
- What is the difference between Odagaki Shoten Store and the houses in the Kawaramachi district nearby?
- Kawaramachi's houses are mostly tsumairi, entered through the narrow gable end. Odagaki Shoten Store is hirairi, entered on the long eaves side, and at 15 metres of frontage it is far wider than a typical Kawaramachi lot. The two forms sit within a ten-minute walk of each other.
- Is there anywhere to eat at Odagaki Shoten Store?
- The adjoining café, Odagaki Zudō, serves black soybean tea and desserts made with Tamba black soybeans, chestnuts and Tamba dainagon adzuki. It is open 11:00 to 17:00 with last orders at 16:00, and closes on Thursdays. Queues form at weekends; the shop counter is usually quicker if you only want to buy something to take away.
Basic Information
| Name | Odagaki Shoten Store (小田垣商店店舗) |
|---|---|
| Location | 19-5 Tateimachi, Tamba-Sasayama City, Hyogo Prefecture (recorded as Sasayama City in the national database, the city having been renamed in 2019) |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure); registration number 28-0283 |
| Year Designated | 2 October 2007 (56th round of registration) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Approx. 15 m along the ridge by 12 m in depth; floor area approx. 193 m²; timber, single storey with partial second storey, tiled roof |
| Owner | Not listed in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database; the grounds are used by Odagaki Co., Ltd. |
| Public Access | Open as a retail shop, 9:30–17:30, closed over the New Year period |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties — Odagaki Shoten Store
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00006235
- Cultural Heritage Online — Odagaki Shoten Store
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/197229
- Odagaki Co., Ltd. — Shop Information
- https://www.odagaki.co.jp/store/
- Japan Heritage Portal — Odagaki Shoten (Store and nine other buildings)
- https://japan-heritage.bunka.go.jp/ja/culturalproperties/result/882/
- New Material Research Laboratory — Odagaki Shoten
- https://shinsoken.jp/works/odagaki-shoten/
Last verified: 2026.08.05