Maruo Brewery West Main House

What the Maruo Brewery West Main House is

The Maruo Brewery West Main House (丸尾醸造所西主屋, Maruo Jōzōsho Nishi Shuoku) is a two-story timber main house of the middle Meiji era in Enai, Kotohira-chō, Kagawa Prefecture, enlarged with a reception wing in 1937 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2005.

It stands immediately west of the East Main House with a four-bay frontage on the Higashinaka shopping street. The ridge runs east to west under a gabled Kirizuma-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles, with the entrance on the long side in the Hirairi manner. The building area is 103 square meters, and of the four registered buildings at the brewery, this is the oldest.

Why the Maruo Brewery West Main House was registered

The Maruo Brewery West Main House was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs counts it as one of the buildings that make up the historic streetscape of the Higashinaka shopping street. Shoulder to shoulder with the East Main House, it carries the western half of the brewery's front.

The Agency's note points to height. The West Main House is narrower, four bays against its neighbor's seven, but it is the taller of the two, and from the street that height is what gives it presence.

What to look for at the Maruo Brewery West Main House

Stand in front of the East Main House and look west: the eaves and the upper wall step up as your eye reaches the West Main House. The older Meiji building is the taller of the two.

The house has a second, hidden side. In 1937 a reception wing was added at the back, facing a garden. It holds an 8-mat Buddhist altar room and an 8-mat Zashiki reception room, and a separate toilet wing was built with it. Behind the street-front business, the family's place for its ancestral altar and for guests was turned toward the garden.

The main block's ridge runs east to west, while the reception wing's ridge runs north to south. The addition turns the roof line through a right angle and carries it deeper into the plot.

Visiting the Maruo Brewery West Main House

The Maruo Brewery West Main House belongs to a working brewery, and we found no notice of interior openings. From the street you see only the two-story front; the reception wing and garden lie toward the back of the plot, and no viewing of them is offered. No photography policy has been published, so limit photos to the exterior from the street. Directions are on the Maruo Brewery page.