A Row of Six Shops Built on Soy Sauce
Away from the Ishii family compound on the hillside, down in the Uchihama quarter of Nōma on Shōdoshima, stands a long two-storey building that faces the street with six shopfronts under a single roof. It was put up in 1932 by the head of a soy sauce house that traded under the Kikko-ishi mark, and it was never meant to be a home. This was rental property: a commercial nagaya, or row house, built so that six tenants could each run a business behind their own frontage.
The decision tells you something about the family and about the town. By the early twentieth century the Ishii were prosperous enough that brewing alone no longer absorbed their capital, and a brewer with money to invest could think like a landlord. The result is a structure that belongs as much to the commercial life of Nōma as to the Ishii estate itself.
What Stands on Uchihama Street
The building runs north to south, its ridge parallel to the long axis, and turns its west face toward the road. The roof is an irimoya form, a hipped-and-gabled profile that combines a sloping hip below with a gable above, finished in sangawara, the standard ribbed pantile of the region. Two storeys, timber framed, with a footprint of about 185 square metres.
Six bays sit side by side, each one a separate shop of roughly three ken of frontage. Behind each unit, small service rooms holding the lavatory and the like push out at the rear in a kadoya arrangement, little projecting wings that break up what would otherwise be a flat back wall. Seen from the street the effect is a steady rhythm of six identical fronts, the kind of repetition that reads at a glance as a planned commercial block rather than a cluster of separate houses.
Roof tiles and timber in the soy districts of Shōdoshima often carry a dark cast, the surfaces darkened over decades by the airborne work of brewing. The Uchihama building shares that weathered, settled look, which is part of why it sits so naturally in the streetscape around it.
Why It Was Registered, and What to Look For
The nagaya was entered on the national register of tangible cultural properties on 9 February 2005, one of seven Ishii buildings registered together that day under the number 37-0248. The criterion applied was that it contributes to the historic character of the landscape. Registration in Japan is a lighter touch than designation as an Important Cultural Property: it recognises value and asks owners to consult before major change, while leaving the building in everyday use.
What earns the listing is less any single architectural flourish than what the building records about its town. Nōma grew rich on soy sauce, and a brewing family that chose to build six rental shops in the centre of that town left behind physical evidence of how brewing money circulated outward into commerce and property. The row is a piece of that economic history made solid.
For a visitor, the thing to do is read the frontage. Stand across the street and count the bays, notice how the service wings step out at the back, and compare the scale of this commercial block with the residential buildings of the main Ishii compound up the slope. The contrast between a working shop row and a brewing family's home is the lesson the building offers.
The Uchihama nagaya is private property and is not open inside. It is best appreciated from the public road as part of a walk through the wider soy district. For an interior experience of the same world, the Marukin Soy Sauce Memorial Museum a short way off is open to the public, and the Hishio-no-Sato walking routes link the brewing streets of Nōma into an easy circuit.
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Q&A
- Can I go inside the Uchihama nagaya?
- No. It is privately held rental property and the interior is not open to visitors. You can view the street frontage freely from the public road, which is where its character lies.
- How is this building different from the rest of the Ishii estate?
- It stands apart in the Uchihama district of town, not at the family compound on the hillside, and it was built as commercial rental shops rather than as a residence or a brewing facility. It shows the family's reach into the town's commerce.
- What is a nagaya?
- A nagaya is a long building divided into several units under one continuous roof. Here it takes the form of six adjoining shops, each with its own frontage, a common type for urban commercial rental in older Japanese towns.
- When was it built?
- In 1932, in the early Shōwa period. It is the most recent of the seven registered Ishii buildings, several of which date from the Meiji and Taishō decades.
- What else can I see in the area?
- The Hishio-no-Sato soy district around Nōma has one of Japan's largest concentrations of soy sauce storehouses. The Marukin Soy Sauce Memorial Museum nearby is open to the public, and signposted walking routes guide you past the working breweries.
Basic Information
| Name | Kikko-ishi Ishii Family Uchihama Nagaya |
|---|---|
| Location | 881-10 Uchihama, Nōma, Shōdoshima-chō, Shōzu-gun, Kagawa Prefecture |
| Category | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (building), No. 37-0248 |
| Registered | 9 February 2005 (gazetted 28 February 2005) |
| Registration criterion | Contributes to the historic character of the national landscape |
| Built | 1932 (Shōwa 7) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Structure | Timber, two storeys, tiled roof, building area about 185 m² |
| Access | Exterior viewing from the public road only; interior not open |
References
- National Database of Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Kikko-ishi Ishii Family Uchihama Nagaya
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004656
- Walking the Hishio-no-Sato soy district, Shōdoshima (My Kagawa)
- https://www.my-kagawa.jp/shodoshima/feature/shodoshima/beauty3
- Shōdoshima Town: the Sanuki soy sauce brewing tradition
- https://www.town.shodoshima.lg.jp/gyousei/kakuka/shogaigakushuka/2/5909.html
- Kagawa Prefecture: list of registered tangible cultural properties
- https://www.pref.kagawa.lg.jp/kenkyoui/shogaigakushu/bunkazai/culturalassets/culturalassets_16.html
Last verified: 2026.06.25