The Main House at the Heart of the Compound
The Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Main House (山吉山本家住宅主屋, Yamayoshi Yamamoto-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a single-storey timber house of the late Meiji period in Umaki, Shōdoshima-chō, Kagawa Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on February 9, 2005. It carries registration number 37-0252 and is the domestic core of the five-part residence that shares its grounds with the Yamayoshi soy brewery.
The house sits a little east of the centre of the plot, its ridge running east to west. It measures 18 metres by 11 metres, with a registered building area of 233 square metres. The covered corridor that runs west to the detached annex is included in the same registration.
The roof is built in two tiers. The central body has a gabled roof laid in Sangawara-buki pantiles, and around all four sides runs a lower lean-to roof, or Geya, laid in heavier hongawara tiles. Inside, the east end is an earth-floored Doma work area and the west end holds the raised living rooms. A hip-and-gable (irimoya) entrance porch projects from roughly the middle of the south front, and a gabled kitchen wing, the kamaya, juts out at the northeast corner.
Why It Was Registered
The Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Main House was registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out the projecting porch and the kitchen wing and describes the house as imposing in its bearing.
The layout itself is plain and regional: work floor to the east, tatami rooms to the west, the arrangement found in farmhouses and merchant houses across the area. What lifts it is the formal porch pushed out toward the approach and the heavy tiles on the lower roof. A brewing family that had done well in the late Meiji years put that success into the face its house showed to visitors.
The corridor matters too. The detached annex is traditionally described as a retirement house, a separate building for the older generation, yet the corridor ties it to the main house so that nobody had to cross open ground in the rain. How the family chose to live is written into the way the two buildings are joined.
What to Look For: A Reversed Roof
The most telling detail is the tiling. Carpenters usually reserve hongawara, the more labour-intensive system of alternating round and flat tiles, for the main roof, and give secondary lean-tos the lighter pantile. Here it is the other way round: pantiles on the upper roof, hongawara on the lean-to that wraps the house.
Hongawara leaves a row of round tile ends along the eave and casts a deep, regular shadow. Standing at ground level, the eave you actually see is the lower one, not the ridge above it. Putting the heavier tile where the eye lands first is one reasonable explanation for the choice, though no record states it.
The annex next door does the opposite, with hongawara above and pantiles below. The contrast between the two roofs is easiest to read when both are in view.
One point of possible confusion: the kamaya on this house is a domestic kitchen wing with cooking hearths. The brewery on the north side of the grounds has its own separately registered building written with the same characters, the Yamayoshi Soy Sauce Boiler House (釜屋, read kamaba there), which handled the brewing fires. They are different structures.
Visiting
The Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Main House is not open to the public, and we found no arrangement for interior visits. The grounds are private.
Because the house stands in the middle of the compound, behind the guardhouse and the wall, it cannot be seen whole from outside; at most, part of the roof shows above the gatehouse. Photograph only from the public road, and keep the lens away from windows and doorways.
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Q&A
- Can you visit the Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Main House or go inside?
- We found no public opening or interior tours. The grounds are private, and since the house stands in the middle of the compound, only part of its roof is visible from outside.
- When was the Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Main House built, and how big is it?
- The national database dates it to the late Meiji period. It is a single-storey timber house measuring 18 metres by 11 metres, with a building area of 233 square metres.
- When was the Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Main House registered as a cultural property?
- On February 9, 2005, as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, number 37-0252. The guardhouse, annex, storehouse and wall were registered the same day.
- Is the kamaya of the Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Main House the same as the Yamayoshi Soy Sauce Boiler House?
- No. The main house's kamaya is its own kitchen wing, part of this registration. The Yamayoshi Soy Sauce Boiler House is a brewery building registered separately.
- Is the Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Main House connected to the detached annex?
- Yes, by a covered corridor running west from the main house. The corridor is counted as part of the main house registration.
Basic Information
| Name | Yamayoshi Yamamoto Family Residence Main House (山吉山本家住宅主屋) |
|---|---|
| Location | Ko 710, Imasaka, Umaki, Shōdoshima-chō, Shōzu District, Kagawa Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) |
| Year Designated | Registered 2005/2/9 (Heisei 17) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | 18 metres by 11 metres; building area 233 square metres |
| Owner | Not listed in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database |
| Public Access | No public opening announced; exterior from outside the grounds |
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 Detached Annex
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004662
- Shōdoshima Town: Modern Industrial Heritage of Hishio no Sato (Japanese)
- https://www.town.shodoshima.lg.jp/gyousei/kakuka/shogaigakushuka/2/1/3151.html
Last verified: 2026.09.26
