Kotabe Foundry Main House: the home of a casting family
The Kotabe Foundry Main House (小田部鋳造主屋, Kotabe Chūzō Shuoku) is a late Edo-period dwelling at Makabecho-da in Sakuragawa City, Ibaraki Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 28 August 2001. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database places its construction between 1830 and 1867.
The house sits near the middle of the compound. It measures 9 by 5 ken, the traditional bay unit, and is built in the Irimoya-zukuri hipped-and-gabled form with a Sangawara-buki tiled roof, entered on the long side in the Hirairi manner. The building area is 209 square metres. Across the street stand the premises of Nishioka Honten, the brewery behind the sake brand Hana-no-i.
The family who live here cast metal for a living. The Kotabe hold the rank of chokkyo on-imonoji, a title granted to founders permitted to supply castings for the imperial court and other official use. Family tradition says they came from Kawachi Province, in what is now Osaka Prefecture, during the Kenkyū era of 1190 to 1199, and settled here after finding sand and clay suited to casting moulds at the foot of Mount Tsukuba. The present head of the house is the 37th generation, and the workshop still produces temple bells, fire bells and bronze water basins.
Why the Kotabe Foundry Main House was registered
Its Registered Tangible Cultural Property number is 08-0056, and the registration notice was published on 14 September 2001. The criterion applied was contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The north storehouse, south storehouse and gate on the same property were registered on the same day, and the Kotabe Foundry Main House stands at the centre of that group of four.
Makabe took up the registration system in earnest, and more than a hundred buildings in the town gained protection within a few years. Sakuragawa City counts roughly 100 registered properties in and around Makabecho-Makabe. About 17.6 hectares of that area was selected in 2010 as a national Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings. The selected zone covers only part of Makabecho-Makabe, and Makabecho-da, where the Kotabe Foundry Main House stands, lies outside it. This is a building that has survived alongside the family trade rather than under the district's protection.
After the great fire of 1837, merchants in Makabe rebuilt with fireproof shop-storehouses and mud-walled warehouses. The Kotabe Foundry Main House belongs to that rebuilding period but does not follow the townhouse pattern of a shop front facing the street. Its value lies in showing how a household with a working foundry chose to build.
What to look at
The interior is closed, though the official record describes its layout. The southern half of the ground floor is an earth-floored Doma, and a great central pillar stands towards the north. Rooms occupy the northern half. That arrangement belongs to farmhouse planning rather than to the merchant houses of the town centre, and it reflects a trade in which work and daily life shared one roof.
From the road, the roof is what registers. The pantiles run unbroken across all 9 ken of the frontage, and the hipped-and-gabled form drops eaves on every side. A depth of 5 ken gives the building far more bulk than the shop-storehouses along the main streets.
The Yakuimon gate on the western edge of the compound opens towards the earth-floored section of the Kotabe Foundry Main House. Gate and doma line up, which is how a household received both visitors and freight through a single entrance. The gate now stands between the factory shed and a warehouse, a reminder of how little distance separates home from workplace here.
Visiting the Kotabe Foundry Main House
The Kotabe Foundry Main House is a private home in daily use, and the interior is not open to visitors. No factory tour is advertised either. The exterior can be seen from the road along the western side of the compound. Because this is private property, keep photography to the exterior as seen from the public road, and avoid pointing a camera through the gate or into the living quarters.
The nearest railway station is Iwase on the JR Mito Line; Sakuragawa City gives the taxi journey as about 20 minutes. From Tsukuba Station on the Tsukuba Express, take a Tsukuba city bus about 50 minutes to Tsukubasanguchi, then change to a Sakuragawa city bus towards the Iwase branch office for about 20 minutes. By car it is roughly 20 minutes from the Sakuragawa-Chikusei interchange, or about 50 minutes from the Tsuchiura-kita interchange via National Route 125 and Prefectural Route 41.
Park at the Makabe Takajomachi car park (279-1 Makabecho-Makabe, Sakuragawa City). Its 65 spaces for ordinary cars need no booking; the 4 coach spaces must be reserved in advance. Foot traffic reaches as far as the Kotabe Foundry Main House during the Makabe Hina Matsuri doll festival, held in the streets each year from early February until 3 March, but some days bring traffic restrictions in the centre. Check dates and closures with the Sakuragawa Tourism Association. This paragraph was verified on 7 September 2026.
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Q&A
- Can you visit the Kotabe Foundry Main House, and is the interior open?
- The interior is not open. The building is still lived in. You can see the outside from the road that runs along the western side of the compound.
- When was the Kotabe Foundry Main House built, and when was it registered?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it between 1830 and 1867, the closing decades of the Edo period. It was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 28 August 2001.
- How do you get to the Kotabe Foundry Main House from the nearest station?
- About 20 minutes by taxi from Iwase Station on the JR Mito Line. From Tsukuba Station, a bus runs about 50 minutes to Tsukubasanguchi, then about 20 minutes more after changing. By car, about 20 minutes from the Sakuragawa-Chikusei interchange.
- How large is the Kotabe Foundry Main House?
- It measures 9 by 5 ken, with a building area of 209 square metres. It is a single-storey timber house with a hipped-and-gabled pantile roof, entered on its long side.
- Is the Kotabe Foundry Main House inside the Makabe preservation district?
- No. The selected district covers part of Makabecho-Makabe, and the address of the Kotabe Foundry Main House, Makabecho-da, falls outside it. The walk between the two is short.
Basic Information
| Name | Kotabe Foundry Main House |
|---|---|
| Location | 45 Makabecho-da, Sakuragawa City, Ibaraki Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (building) |
| Year Designated | Registered on 28 August 2001 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Building area 209 square metres; 9 by 5 ken |
| Owner | Private. No owner name is listed in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database |
| Public Access | Not open to the public. The exterior is visible from the road outside the compound |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database, Kotabe Chuzo Shuoku
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00002208
- Sakuragawa City, Makabe Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/education/bunkazai/city_bunkazai/kuni_bunkazai/page003423.html
- Sakuragawa City, The townscape of Makabe
- https://www.city.sakuragawa.lg.jp/tourism_guide/learn/page000455.html
- Ibaraki Prefectural Board of Education, Makabe Preservation District, Sakuragawa City
- https://kyoiku.pref.ibaraki.jp/bunkazai/bunkazai-8557/
- Kotabe Chuzo Co., Ltd., Company profile
- https://kotabe.sakuragawa.jp/company.html
Last verified: 2026.09.07