Former Okayama Sake Brewery Yokoen Kiutei

A Three-Storey Timber Tower on the Nasu Road

The Former Okayama Sake Brewery Yokoen Kiutei (旧岡山酒造養浩園喜雨亭) is a mid-Meiji era, 3-storey timber reception pavilion at Takabe in Hitachiōmiya, Ibaraki Prefecture, listed as a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property in the buildings category on 29 June 2022. It stands in the village of Takabe, on the highway that once linked Hitachiōta with Nasu. The roof is Irimoya-zukuri, hipped-and-gabled, now clad in copper sheet; originally it carried kobabuki, a covering of thin overlapping wooden shingles. The built area is only 50 square metres.

Fifty square metres describes the footprint, not the effect. What makes the Former Okayama Sake Brewery Yokoen Kiutei register from a distance is that three floors were stacked on that small plan. The Agency for Cultural Affairs description notes that the third storey steps sharply inward. The plan tightens as it rises, so from the road the top of the building tapers away into the sky.

The entrance opens on the south side, facing the garden rather than the highway. The building was made to present a face in both directions. The Agency's national database dates construction to the middle of the Meiji era, between 1883 and 1897, and records a renovation in 1995 (Heisei 7).

From Paper Wholesalers to Sake Brewers, and a Signboard in the Sky

Takabe was a post town on the Nasu road, prosperous in the Edo period as a collection point for washi paper, paper mulberry and leaf tobacco. The Okayama family were among the leading paper wholesalers who drove that trade. In 1873 they converted the family business to sake brewing and produced labels including Hana no Tomo, meaning Friend of the Blossom. The pavilion was raised by Okayama Sentarō (1833 to 1889), the head of the house who founded the brewery.

The listing rests on the criterion for a Registered Tangible Cultural Property that covers buildings contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The registration number is 08-0315. In this case the contribution is entirely literal. The third storey of the Former Okayama Sake Brewery Yokoen Kiutei carried the Hana no Tomo signboard and panels of coloured glass set into its walls, and it functioned as advertising. The name of the sake was hoisted to the height a traveller on the road would see first. The heritage assessment and the commercial calculation of the man who built it converge on the same feature.

The Ibaraki Prefectural Board of Education records a tradition that the tower was modelled on the Kōbuntei in Kairakuen, the celebrated garden in Mito. It is presented as something handed down rather than established.

The Reception Room Above, the Coloured Glass Higher Still

The ground floor was converted in recent years into a Chashitsu tea room, but the second and third storeys survive substantially as built. The second floor is an 8-mat Zashiki with a Tokonoma alcove, wrapped by a broad Engawa veranda along the south and east faces. Calligraphy and paintings were hung here and guests were received. The sliding screens carry paintings by Noguchi Katsuichi.

Sit on that veranda and the strolling garden called Yōkōen opens to the south. Okayama Sentarō laid it out in the mid-Meiji era as a pond garden. Beyond the pond and its island runs the Ogawa River, and behind the river a sheer rock face rises. Plum, maple, umbrella pine and Japanese cypress stand among azalea and hydrangea. Yōkōen became a nationally Registered Monument on 10 November 2022. Garden and building are inseparable, which is why the name of the Former Okayama Sake Brewery Yokoen Kiutei carries both.

Climb to the third floor and the coloured glass panels filter the light. Contemporaries called the material giyaman, an old Japanese term for imported cut glass. From outside it was a billboard; from inside it is a small room lit in colour. One floor doing two jobs at once is a fair summary of the whole building.

Yōkōen hosted tea gatherings and poetry meetings that drew business associates, local politicians and men of letters. The garden was also opened to neighbours, and children are said to have skated on the frozen pond in winter.

Visiting and Access

The Former Okayama Sake Brewery Yokoen Kiutei is privately owned and normally closed. Local volunteers have taken on its conservation and use, however, and the building is opened periodically together with the garden. The two organisers are a local group whose name translates as the Association for Harmony between Forest and Community, and the non-profit Miwa no Mori. The contact number is 0295-58-3812.

The terms published by the city of Hitachiōmiya are these: opening hours from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., admission 500 yen per person, free for junior high school students and younger, with a printed guide included. The money collected goes toward maintaining the garden. Opening days fall a few times a year and are chosen by season, so check the Hitachiōmiya cultural properties page or the organisers for current dates before travelling.

Neither the city nor the organisers publish a policy on photography. Ask on site during an opening day.

By public transport, take the JR Suigun Line to Hitachi-Ōmiya Station and pick up an Ibaraki Kōtsū bus toward the Takabe depot, alighting at Takabe. Services are infrequent, so consult the timetable first. Drivers can use the lot across the road on opening days. The address is 3970 Takabe-aza-Yado, Hitachiōmiya.