Iwase Family Residence Wooden Fence

Roofed Fences Framing the Main Entrance

The Iwase Family Residence Wooden Fence (岩瀬家住宅板塀, Iwase-ke Jūtaku Itabei) is an early Shōwa-period roofed board fence extending from both sides of the main entrance of a salt-producing family's estate in Shinhamacho, Sakaide, Kagawa Prefecture; it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 29 March 2019 (registration no. 37-436).

The fence is in two parts. One runs straight east from the south side of the main entrance; the other leaves the north side of the entrance, turns through a right angle and runs north. Together they are 41 metres long, and they stand 2.6 metres high.

Just inside the front gate, the two runs enclose the forecourt and define the path from gate to door. It is the most recent of the seven registered structures on the estate.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs praises the Iwase Family Residence Wooden Fence for the delicate design with which it sets off the front of the main house, and its 2018 recommendation lists the fence along the path between gate and house among the elements that give the estate its refinement.

It is built almost like a small building. Posts rise from a sill, tied at the top by a ridge beam and horizontal rails; projecting brackets carry the eaves, and the whole is capped with a tiled roof.

Between the posts are vertical boards, with thin battens nailed over the joints. The upper section is a diagonal lattice in which the slender members are set in close pairs, a technique called fukiyose. Solid boarding below screens the view; the open lattice above lets in light and air.

What to Look For

The paired diagonal lattice along the top is the fence's signature, setting up a light, regular rhythm along its length.

Compare it with the earthen wall outside. The earthen wall, of stone and plaster, is a heavy late Meiji boundary; the Iwase Family Residence Wooden Fence, of timber and lattice, is a lighter early Shōwa screen, and at 2.6 metres it actually stands taller than the earthen wall, which reaches 2.4 metres. Defence faces outward, hospitality inward, and the materials say so.

The fence dates from roughly the same time the main house was enlarged and remodelled, around 1932. The two may have been part of one campaign to rework the entrance, but no record has been found that links them.

Seeing the Wooden Fence

The fence stands inside the front gate, in the forecourt of a private home, and is not open to visitors. It can hardly be seen from outside the property.

Directions and general viewing conditions for the estate are covered on the Iwase Family Residence page.