Majima Family Residence

The Majima Family Residence estate

The Majima Family Residence (間島家住宅, Majima-ke Jūtaku) is an old family estate in Mure, Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture, where a main house and a nagayamon gatehouse of the late Edo period (1830 to 1867) and three structures of the early Shōwa period were registered together as five Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2006.

The family name is read Majima. The Agency for Cultural Affairs lists all five structures under the reading Majima-ke Jūtaku.

The plot has an unusual shape. The Agency describes it as triangular, and along its east and west sides the outer wall rises straight from the stone banks of water channels. According to the Agency's note on that wall, local people know the place affectionately as the Sankaku Yashiki, the Triangle Estate.

Reading the five descriptions together gives a plan of the Majima Family Residence. The main house stands near the middle of the triangle, facing south. South of it, toward the western end of the south side, the long gatehouse runs east to west. From just west of the formal entrance of the main house, an inner wall with a small garden gate runs south and then turns west to meet the back of the gatehouse. It splits the ground in front of the house into a forecourt by the entrance and an inner garden facing the reception rooms.

North of the main house, along the west side of the plot, stands the storehouse, holding the northern point of the triangle. A tile-capped outer wall 120 meters long wraps around the whole estate. On the west it takes in the storehouse and the privy of the main house, on the east a barn, and on the south the gatehouse, so that walls and buildings together form one continuous boundary. The barn itself is not among the registered structures.

Dating the Majima Family Residence

The oldest parts are the main house and the gatehouse, both dated by the Agency to the late Edo period. Both were thatched, and at the time of registration their thatch was covered with temporary metal sheeting.

The storehouse, the garden gate with its earthen wall, and the outer wall are placed in the early Shōwa period, which began in 1926. All three are roofed or capped with tile. The likely sequence is that two thatched buildings of the late Edo period were joined in the early Shōwa years by a tiled storehouse and tiled walls, giving the Majima Family Residence its present form.

We found no public record, in the Agency's or Kagawa Prefecture's material, of how the estate was assembled or of the Majima family's trade and history. The dates above are the Agency's period labels, and no exact building years have been published.

The five registered structures

All five structures of the Majima Family Residence were registered on March 2, 2006, under the consecutive numbers 37-0291 to 37-0295. The main house was registered as a model of design, and the other four for their contribution to the historic landscape.

• Majima Family Residence Main House: late Edo period, single-story timber, thatch under temporary metal sheeting, building area 174 square meters, with privy
• Majima Family Residence Nagayamon Gate: late Edo period, single-story timber, thatch under temporary metal sheeting, building area 138 square meters
• Majima Family Residence Storehouse: early Shōwa period, two-story earthen-walled storehouse, tile roof, building area 55 square meters
• Majima Family Residence Garden Gate and Earthen Wall: early Shōwa period, timber gate with tile roof 1.4 meters wide, tile-capped wall 13 meters long
• Majima Family Residence Outer Wall: early Shōwa period, tile-capped earthen wall 120 meters long

The roof of the main house is in the Shihōbuta-zukuri form seen in farmhouses of Sanuki, the old name for Kagawa, and the Agency calls it a good example of a Sanuki farmhouse. The gatehouse runs 22.3 meters, longer than the 18-meter main house behind it, so from the south side of the estate the front building reads wider than the house it guards.

Visiting the Majima Family Residence

The Majima Family Residence is privately owned and lived in, according to Kagawa Prefecture's list of registered properties. We checked the Agency's and the prefecture's material and found no notice that the buildings are open to the public. Please assume there are no visits, stay off the property and look only from outside.

No photography rules have been published. The outer wall and the gatehouse form the edge of the estate, but we could not confirm how much of them can be seen from the road. Please keep residents and the inside of the house out of any photographs.

The nearest railway station is Yakuri on the Kotoden Shido Line. Under the fare table revised on October 1, 2026, the fare to Yakuri is 410 yen from Kawaramachi and 450 yen from Takamatsu-Chikko. Measured on a map, the Majima Family Residence lies about 450 meters north of Yakuri Station in a straight line.