Hirai Family Residence (Shintone Village, Inashiki District, Ibaraki Prefecture)

A thatched hall-plan farmhouse on the Shintone plain

The Hirai Family Residence (平井家住宅, Hirai-ke Jūtaku) is a thatched farmhouse of the middle Edo period at 155 Shibasaki in Inashiki City, Ibaraki Prefecture, designated an Important Cultural Property in 1976 (Shōwa 51).

Its registered name ends with a parenthesis reading Shintone Village, Inashiki District, Ibaraki Prefecture. That was the municipality on the day of designation. Shintone became part of Inashiki City in 2005, but the register kept the older wording, which is why the Hirai Family Residence appears under two place names depending on which document you are reading.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records a single building of 20.2 m along the ridge by 10.7 m in depth, Yosemune-zukuri and Kayabuki, with a lavatory attached at the north end of the west elevation. It is a sugoya, an unbroken rectangle in plan, without the projecting wing that gives many farmhouses of the region an L-shaped footprint.

Dating is where the sources part company, and the article follows both. The national register assigns the house to around the Genroku era, between 1688 and 1703, on the strength of a ridge tag from the 1690s that is said to have been present. Inashiki City takes a different line: from the structural detailing, from records kept by the Hirai family and from the period when the Shintone River was cut, the city considers the house likely to have stood by the Kanbun era, that is from 1661, with the earthen-floored section added around Genroku. Neither reading is a settled matter.

Why the Hirai Family Residence is designated

The Hirai Family Residence was designated an Important Cultural Property on 3 February 1976 as a surviving example of the modified hall-plan farmhouse, a house type distributed along a belt that runs from southern Ibaraki Prefecture into northern Chiba Prefecture.

The hall plan puts one large undivided room at the centre of the dwelling instead of dividing the floored area into a grid of small chambers. The modified version found in this belt adjusts that arrangement, and the type is common enough regionally that any single house has to earn its place. The Agency for Cultural Affairs is explicit about why this one does: among farmhouses of the same type the Hirai Family Residence is of exceptional material and the finish is carefully done. That is a judgement about carpentry rather than about age.

Age matters too. Inashiki City describes the Hirai Family Residence as one of the oldest farmhouses in the Kantō region, which is the ground it gives for the 1976 designation. Very few dwellings of the 17th century survive anywhere in eastern Japan, since farmhouses were rebuilt as families prospered or burned and were replaced.

Between 2001 and 2003 the house was taken apart and rebuilt in a full dismantling restoration. Work of this kind resolves questions that cannot be answered while a building stands, because every joint and every reused timber becomes visible. It also explains why the figures published by the city differ slightly from those in the national register: Inashiki City gives a frontage of 19.2 m and a depth of 9.7 m for a floor area of about 182 square metres, measured after the restoration.

What to look for on site

The plan is close to a plain rectangle, and the one place it breaks is worth finding. On the east side of the earthen-floored section the northern half pushes out beyond the wall line, and the cooking range sits in that projection. A kitchen bay of this kind is a working solution rather than a decorative one, keeping fire and smoke away from the floored rooms while leaving the range within reach of the main space.

Inside the earthen-floored section, look up at the posts. Inashiki City records that thick zelkova members were introduced when this part of the house was extended, and zelkova reads quite differently from the pine and chestnut used in most farmhouse framing: harder, darker, with a coarse and restless grain that catches light along its length.

The roof is a single sweep of thatch over the whole rectangle, without the valley or the ridge break that a projecting wing would force. Seen from the approach the Hirai Family Residence therefore presents an unusually long unbroken slope for a farmhouse of its date, and the eaves line runs almost the full 20.2 m of the building.

The restoration returned the interior to the state it is thought to have reached around Genroku, so what stands today is a considered reconstruction rather than an untouched survival. Panels and posts that were judged to be later additions came out. Visitors who look for evidence of that decision will find it in the plainness of the rooms, which have none of the ceiling boards and fitted joinery that made such houses liveable in the 20th century.

Visiting the Hirai Family Residence

The Hirai Family Residence can be visited, but only by prior arrangement. Inashiki City asks that anyone wishing to enter book ahead by telephone on 0297-87-3626, since the house is managed rather than staffed. Admission is 200 yen per person. No viewing is available between 29 December and 4 January.

Reaching the house needs a car. Shibasaki lies in the former Shintone area, in open farmland between the Shintone River and the Tone, and the closest railway station is Ryūgasakishi on the JR Jōban Line, formerly called Sanuki, about 20 minutes away by taxi. There is no bus that passes the site.

Because access to the Hirai Family Residence is arranged through the manager, photography is best raised at the time of booking rather than assumed. Exterior photography from the approach is straightforward. Inside, the light is low and comes mainly through the entrance and the earthen-floored section, so a fast lens is more use than a flash, and a flash is in any case something to ask about first.