Urushibara Family Residence

About the Urushibara Family Residence

The Urushibara Family Residence (漆原家住宅, Urushibara-ke Jūtaku) is the walled estate of a rural samurai family in Mitani-cho, Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture, where eight structures ranging from the late Edo period (1751 to 1830) to the Meiji era were listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on February 27, 2023.

The property covers roughly 7,000 square meters of farmland on the southern edge of the Sanuki Plain, closed in by a long earthen wall finished in white Shikkui plaster. The family is still in residence.

A 2023 article by Shinya Ishida, an architectural specialist with the Kagawa Prefectural Board of Education, sets out the family history as the owners tell it. The Urushibara are said to descend from retainers of the Hosokawa clan. On settling in Sanuki they lived in a district called Urushibara in Kawara village and took its name. The senior line kept its seat at Tōritani; in 1747, when the headship passed to the sixth generation, a younger brother moved to Nishimitani and founded the branch that lives here today. The present head is the ninth generation.

Through the Edo period the Urushibara were Gōshi: landholding farmers who served as village headmen (Shōya) in peacetime and owed military service to the Takamatsu domain in an emergency. Roof tiles on the estate carry the stamp of the domain's official tile maker, a detail Ishida reads as a sign of that close tie. In fiscal 2013 the Takamatsu City Museum of History held a collection exhibition on the household goods and daily life of the senior Urushibara line.

Eight Registered Structures and Their Dates

All eight structures of the Urushibara Family Residence entered the national register together, as nos. 37-0477 to 37-0484, each for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives these dates:

• Main house: late Edo period, altered around 1902 and again in the mid Showa period
• Nagayamon gate: late Edo period, altered in the early Meiji era
• Earthen wall: late Edo period
• Storehouse: early Meiji era (1868 to 1882), altered in the late Showa period
• Liquid manure barn: early Meiji era
• Firewood barn: early Meiji era
• Middle gate and wing walls: mid Meiji era (1883 to 1897)
• Bathhouse: around 1902

The frame of the estate, meaning the house, the gate and the perimeter wall, was in place by the end of the Edo period. The storehouse, barns and guest bathhouse followed in the Meiji decades. The bathhouse went up around 1902, the same time the main house was being remodelled.

Several unregistered buildings survive as well, among them a well house, an outdoor privy, a shed for the scaffolding timber used in repairs, and water channels running through the grounds.

How the Estate Is Laid Out

At the Urushibara Family Residence, a 262-meter earthen wall runs along the east, north and west sides and the western half of the south side, with a moat outside the three inland sides. The nagayamon gate opens at the middle of the south side. East of it stand the liquid manure barn and, at the southeast corner, the firewood barn; both turn blank walls to the road, so the whole south front reads as one long, closed facade.

From the gate a straight stone path leads to the main house. To its left, a plastered wing wall with a middle gate runs from the formal entrance of the main house down to the nagayamon, separating the working entry court from the garden in front of the reception rooms.

The main house faces south, with its earth-floored work area on the east and the formal rooms toward the west. A guest bathhouse is joined to those rooms by a veranda on the west side, and the storehouse lies east to west toward the north of the plot, its rice store opening toward the earth-floored side of the house and its tool store toward the reception rooms.

Visiting

The Urushibara Family Residence is a private home and is not open to the public. As of September 28, 2026, no open days or visiting arrangements had been announced. Please stay on the public road and keep in mind that people live here.

From the road you can see the south front, where the nagayamon gate and the two barns line up, and stretches of the earthen wall running beside the moat.

The estate lies in farmland in Nishimitani-higashi, Mitani-cho, about 2 kilometers in a straight line east of Busshozan Station on the Kotoden Kotohira Line. There is no visitor parking or reception.