Yoneda Family Residence Lower Storage Shed

A Storage Strip Behind the Main House

The Yoneda Family Residence Lower Storage Shed (米田家住宅下納屋, Yoneda-ke Jūtaku Shimo-naya) is a long, narrow storage building put up in 1941 (Showa 16) behind the main house of the Yoneda estate in Uyama, Sumoto City, Hyogo Prefecture, and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2004.

It runs parallel to the main house along its rear, on the east side. The building measures about 8 metres by about 1 metre and covers 7.9 square metres. It has a single-pitch roof in sangawara pan tiles, and its walls are built in shinkabe style, with the posts left exposed.

Inside, it is divided into 4 compartments, each with its own pair of sliding doors facing the main house. Step out of the back of the house and any one of them is within reach.

Why It Was Registered

The Yoneda Family Residence Lower Storage Shed was registered on 2 March 2004, in the 41st round of national registrations, as number 28-0148, under the criterion of serving as a model of good design.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls it a storage building with few parallels and a glimpse of daily life in a large household of this region. At about 1 metre deep, it is less a room to work in than a long cupboard, and the way the household kept its everyday things sorted right behind the house is written into the shape of the building.

What to Look For

A building about 1 metre deep

The difference between length and depth is striking: about 8 metres one way, about 1 metre the other. The single-pitch roof, sloping one way only, makes the strip look even slimmer. Published records do not say whether it slopes toward the house or away from it.

Four doors, four compartments

Each compartment has its own sliding doors on the house side, so contents could be fetched one bay at a time and different things kept in different bays. What was actually stored there is not recorded.

Exposed timber

The shinkabe walls show their posts, like the main house and the bathhouse. Small as it is, the Yoneda Family Residence Lower Storage Shed was finished to match the Japanese-style look of the rest of the estate.

Visiting

The shed is part of a private home. As of October 2026 we found no announcement of public openings, and the grounds are closed. It stands behind the main house on the east side of the plot, and we could not confirm whether it can be seen from outside the property.

Exterior photographs are available in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database of national cultural properties.