Kawashima Clothing Storehouse

Kawashima Clothing Store Storehouse: A Late Edo-Period Treasure in the Heart of Makabe

Tucked into the northwest corner of a small property along Gojinya-mae-dori in the historic town of Makabe lies a quietly distinguished building: the Kawashima Clothing Store Storehouse (Kawashima Yohinten Dozo). Built between the late Tenpo and Keio eras of the late Edo period, roughly 1830 to 1867, this two-story plastered storehouse has stood for more than a century and a half, witnessing the rise and fall of Makabe's cotton trade, the transition from feudal to modern Japan, and the slow rhythms of a town whose layout has barely changed since the early 1600s.

Registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in August 2002, this small but elegant dozo (earthen-walled storehouse) is one of more than one hundred registered historic buildings that line the streets of Makabe, a district designated in 2010 as one of Japan's Important Preservation Districts for Groups of Traditional Buildings. For visitors who appreciate craftsmanship, atmosphere, and the quiet poetry of an old merchant town, the Kawashima Storehouse and its surroundings offer a deeply rewarding glimpse into a Japan that time forgot.

The Town of Makabe: An Old Castle Town That Time Spared

To understand the storehouse, you have to understand Makabe. Set at the northern foot of Mount Tsukuba in central Ibaraki Prefecture, Makabe began as a castle town established by the Makabe clan in the late Sengoku period. After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, the Makabe family was relocated to Akita, and in 1606 the warlord Asano Nagamasa moved in and, together with his son Naganobu, completed the town's grid-based street plan. That layout, roughly four hundred years old, survives almost unchanged today.

Throughout the Edo period, Makabe flourished as an inland market town. Cotton was brought in from Osaka, Nara, and Okazaki and sold on at twelve markets a month, supplying merchants from as far away as Aizu and Yonezawa in the Tohoku region. After a great fire devastated the town in the eighth year of Tenpo (1837), the wooden buildings of earlier centuries were gradually replaced by sturdier kura-zukuri (storehouse-style) construction designed to resist fire. The Kawashima Storehouse belongs to this very tradition: a fire-resistant dozo built in the decades after the catastrophe, with thick plaster walls, heavy timbers, and a tiled roof.

What Makes the Storehouse Special

An Architecture of Quiet Detail

The Kawashima Storehouse measures four ken (about 7.3 meters) along the eaves and two ken (about 3.6 meters) deep, with a footprint of just thirty-seven square meters. It is a full two-story structure with a gable roof and eaves-side entrance, capped with sangawara-buki pantiles. None of these dimensions are extraordinary on their own. What makes the building special is the care taken with its surfaces.

The walls are finished primarily in white shikkui plaster, the lime-based finish typical of high-quality storehouses across Japan. The two gable ends, however, are clad entirely in sasarako-shitamita: horizontal weatherboards held in place by vertical battens whose edges are notched in a serrated profile. This combination of crisp plaster and dark, textured timber gives the building a satisfying visual rhythm that announces itself even at a glance.

The Wave-Patterned Eaves

The most distinctive feature of the building is one most visitors miss until it is pointed out: the underside of the eaves is plastered into a gentle wave pattern that follows the curve of each rafter. Rather than leaving the rafter ends exposed in the usual way, the builders enveloped them in lime plaster, creating a continuous undulating surface like a row of small white hills. This technique, called nuri-gome, is a hallmark of high-quality dozo construction and required real skill from the plasterers. Step underneath the eaves, look up, and the geometry reveals itself.

Why It Was Designated

When the Agency for Cultural Affairs added the Kawashima Storehouse to the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties in 2002, it did so under the new (1996) registration system designed specifically to protect modern and pre-modern buildings that might otherwise vanish. Unlike the more selective designation system reserved for items of national importance, the registration system casts a wider net, recognizing buildings that contribute meaningfully to the historic character of their surroundings.

The Kawashima Storehouse meets this standard on several counts. It is an authentic late-Edo dozo that has retained its original form and finishes. It demonstrates skilled regional craftsmanship in its plasterwork and timber detailing. And it stands within the dense fabric of the Makabe historic district, where it forms part of a streetscape that as a whole conveys the look and feel of an inland merchant town as it existed two centuries ago. Together with more than a hundred similarly registered neighbors, it tells a story that no single building could tell on its own.

Highlights for Visitors

The Streetscape Itself

Makabe's appeal is cumulative. Walking the four east-west streets that frame the old town center, you pass mise-gura (storefront storehouses), residential dozo like the Kawashima building, yakui-mon gateways, Western-style buildings from the Taisho and early Showa eras, and small temples and shrines. The former Makabe Post Office at the heart of the district, built in the early Showa period, serves as a modest but beloved landmark.

The Makabe Doll Festival

If you can time your visit between February 4 and March 3, you will encounter Makabe Hinamatsuri, the town's celebrated Doll Festival. Begun in 2003 by a handful of residents who simply wanted to welcome winter visitors with hospitality, the festival now draws tens of thousands of guests each year. More than a hundred households and shops display hina dolls of every era, from cherished Edo-period sets to modern handmade pieces, in their windows and entrance halls. Admission is free, and there is no fixed route: you simply walk and look.

Getting Lost on Purpose

Makabe's old streets are sometimes called "wandering roads" (mayoi-michi), because the castle town was originally laid out to confuse intruders. Embrace this. Wander off the main street, follow narrow lanes between mud-walled buildings, and pause whenever something catches your eye. The town rewards unhurried exploration.

What Else to See Nearby

The wider area around Makabe offers several worthwhile detours within a short drive. About one kilometer east of the town center stands the Makabe Castle Ruins (Makabe-jo Ato), a nationally designated historic site whose well-preserved earthworks and moats trace the outline of the medieval castle from which the town grew. Within the historic district itself, the Murai Brewery is one of the area's oldest sake producers, with handsome white-walled storehouses and a tasting shop set inside a registered cultural property. Across from it, the Odabe Foundry has been making bells and ironwork for some eight centuries.

Mount Tsukuba, one of the most beloved peaks in eastern Japan, rises south of the town. Granite quarried from this range, known as Makabe-ishi, is among Japan's finest building stones and is the foundation of the local stonemasonry industry that flourished from the Meiji era onward. Stoneworking workshops can still be visited in and around the district.