A Soy Brewery and the Brewer's House on One Plot
Yamayoshi Soy Sauce and Yamamoto Family Residence (山吉醤油・山本家住宅) is a Meiji-period soy brewery and brewing family's estate in Hishio no Sato (醤の郷), Shōdoshima-chō, Shōzu District, Kagawa Prefecture, whose nine structures, built between 1888 and the late Meiji years, were entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on February 9, 2005. The four brewery buildings are registered under the name Yamayoshi Soy Sauce (Yamayoshi Shōyu), and the five domestic structures as the Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence (Yamayoshi Yamamoto-ke Jūtaku).
Read side by side, the Agency for Cultural Affairs descriptions make it clear that the two registrations share one plot. The brewery's moromi storehouse is located as lying north of the residence's annex, and the residence's boundary wall is described as turning just short of the moromi storehouse. Each is placed by reference to the other. The place where soy sauce was made and the house of the family who sold it stood side by side, separated only by a watercourse and a wall.
The nine break down as follows. The brewery: the moromi storehouse and the pressing and preparation houses, both of 1888; the raw materials storehouse with its counting house, and the boiler house, both of 1908. The residence: the main house and the neribei wall, dated to the late Meiji period, and the guardhouse, detached annex and storehouse, all of 1908. The brewery came first, and in 1908 two brewery buildings and three domestic ones went up together, which suggests a major campaign of building across the whole estate that year.
One quirk of the records: although the plot is a single property, the national database lists the five residential structures under Umaki and the four brewery buildings under the neighbouring district of Noma.
How the Estate Is Laid Out
A small watercourse crosses the property from east to west, and it is the easiest reference point for making sense of the plan.
The domestic side faces south. The guardhouse, a Nagayamon gatehouse, stands on the southern edge, and north of it, a little east of the centre of the plot, is the main house. West of the main house lies the detached annex, joined by a covered corridor, with the storehouse built against its back. The neribei wall leaves the guardhouse's west gable, turns north at the southwest corner and closes off the west side of the residence.
Beyond the point where the wall turns east, north of the annex and south of the watercourse, the moromi storehouse runs long on a north-south axis, with the pressing house and preparation house standing parallel to it on the east. That is the south bank. Across the water, to the north, is the raw materials storehouse, and east of that, north of the pressing house, the boiler house lies on an east-west ridge. The brick chimney rising 15 metres from it is, in the words of the official description, the landmark of Yamayoshi Soy Sauce.
Follow the process and it is split across the two banks: raw materials stored, beans steamed and wheat roasted in the boiler house, koji and brine combined in the preparation house, the mash left to ferment in the moromi storehouse, then pressed. From the house to the vats was a matter of a few dozen steps, and gate, main house, retirement annex, tool store and fermentation hall follow one another without a break.
Yamayoshi Soy Sauce in Hishio no Sato
According to the history compiled by the Shōdoshima soy sauce cooperative, island soy began to be shipped in quantity to the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe market from the Kansei era onward, and between 1878 and 1886 the number of brewing households reached about 400. A shake-out followed, and the surviving makers formed a trade association in 1901. The moromi storehouse was built in 1888, just after that peak; the residence was rebuilt in 1908, when the industry was consolidating after the upheaval.
Umaki is said to have been settled by salt makers who came from Akō in Harima Province, and the district later turned from salt to soy. Shōdoshima Town describes Hishio no Sato as a landscape formed jointly by brewery buildings and the houses of families who prospered in the trade. With both its brewery and its residence on the register, Yamayoshi Soy Sauce and Yamamoto Family Residence shows that pairing in a single place.
The craft behind the buildings has been recognised too. The soy brewing techniques of Sanuki, the old name for Kagawa, including those of Shōdoshima, were registered as an intangible folk cultural property in 2021. Shōdoshima Town notes that it was the first registration nationwide under a category created by an amendment to the cultural properties law that year.
Yamayoshi Soy Sauce closed in 2002. According to Shokin Shoyu, a neighbouring brewer with long-standing ties to the Yamayoshi business, it took over the Yamayoshi brewery buildings when the company ceased trading and resumed production there. The brewery buildings still hold Shokin's fermenting soy.
Visiting and Getting There
All nine structures of Yamayoshi Soy Sauce and Yamamoto Family Residence are on private land. As of September 2026 we could find no public opening or interior tours, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs database lists no owner. Shōdoshima Town asks visitors to check directly with each site in Hishio no Sato before assuming access. Stay outside the grounds and view the buildings from the road.
The brewery is a working production site run by Shokin Shoyu. If you hope to see inside, contact the company before you go rather than turning up. The residence may be lived in. Photograph from the public road, and avoid pointing a lens at doorways, windows or people at work.
From outside, the parts you are most likely to see are the guardhouse and the neribei wall on the edge of the plot, and the boiler house chimney above the rooftops.
Shōdoshima is reached by ferry. Hishio no Sato lies on the east side of the island, closest to Sakate and Kusakabe ports. Local buses are run by Shōdoshima Olive Bus; the nearest stop, Umaki, is about 550 metres from the estate in a straight line.
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Main House
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004660
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Guardhouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004661
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Detached Annex
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004662
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Storehouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004663
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Neribei Wall
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004665
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Yamayoshi Soy Sauce Moromi Storehouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004666
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Yamayoshi Soy Sauce Pressing House and Preparation House
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004667
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Yamayoshi Soy Sauce Raw Materials Storehouse and Counting House
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004668
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Yamayoshi Soy Sauce Boiler House
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004669
- Shōdoshima Town: Modern Industrial Heritage of Hishio no Sato (Japanese)
- https://www.town.shodoshima.lg.jp/gyousei/kakuka/shogaigakushuka/2/1/3151.html
- Shōdoshima Town: Sanuki Soy Sauce Brewing Techniques Registered as an Intangible Folk Cultural Property (Japanese)
- https://www.town.shodoshima.lg.jp/gyousei/kakuka/shogaigakushuka/2/5909.html
- Shōdoshima Soy Sauce Cooperative: History of Shōdoshima Soy Sauce (Japanese)
- https://shima-shoyu.com/history/
- Shōdoshima Town Chamber of Commerce: Sightseeing, Hishio no Sato and the Umaki Walking Route (Japanese)
- https://shokokai-kagawa.or.jp/shoudoshima/sightseeing/
- Shokin Shoyu Co., Ltd.: Company Profile (Japanese)
- https://shokinshoyu.jp/company/
- Shōdoshima Olive Bus: Timetables (Japanese)
- https://www.shodoshima-olive-bus.com/dia/
Last verified: 2026.09.26
Basic Information
| Name | Yamayoshi Soy Sauce and Yamamoto Family Residence |
|---|---|
| Location | 710 Imasaka, Umaki, Shodoshima-cho, Shozu-gun, Kagawa Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (9) |
| Coordinates | 34.47514, 134.32458 |
