Moriyama Family Residence (Aira)

About the Moriyama Family Residence in Aira

The Moriyama Family Residence (森山家住宅, Moriyama-ke Jūtaku) in Kajiki-chō, Aira City, Kagoshima Prefecture, is the former home of a family of iron founders, and its three buildings, a main house and storehouse built in 1904 and a workshop dated to the late Edo period, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties between 2002 and 2007. The storehouse was registered first, on June 25, 2002, the main house followed on August 3, 2006, and the former workshop on October 2, 2007.

In August 2013 the Moriyama family donated the three buildings and the land beneath them to Aira City. The city has since restored them, added displays on the family and on its links to the Shūseikan industrial project of the 1850s, and opened the interiors to visitors by appointment.

A second registered building with a similar name, the Moriyama Family Residence Stone Storehouse, stands in Yokogawa-chō in the neighboring city of Kirishima. It has a different owner and is a separate property. This page covers the Moriyama Family Residence in Kajiki.

A Foundry Family in Kajiki

Kajiki was known for making iron pots and kettles, and the Moriyama family prospered in the casting trade from the Edo period into the Meiji era. According to a leaflet published by the Aira City Board of Education, the family's genealogy and papers name Moriyama Isuke, who died in 1854, as the founder of the Kajiki potters' trade. His three sons each ran their own foundry under a trade name: Yama-ichi for the eldest, Ihei; Yama-ni for the second son, Zenzaemon; and Yama-san for the youngest, Man'emon. The Moriyama Family Residence was the home of the second son's line.

The family's business was tied closely to the finances of the Satsuma domain. Between 1831 and 1845, Moriyama Ihei received permission from the Santo-kata, the domain office that governed Amami Ōshima, Kikaijima and Tokunoshima, to make and sell pots for the domain. Brown sugar from those islands was one of Satsuma's main sources of income, and boiling down cane juice required large iron pans. The Moriyamas cast them.

In the 1850s the family also worked on cannon for the Shūseikan, the industrial complex that the domain lord Shimazu Nariakira founded at Iso in Kagoshima. The city's leaflet records that in 1861 the town magistrate rewarded the family for its part in casting cannon there. On November 30, 2007, the three buildings of the Moriyama Family Residence were also named part of a group of Heritage of Industrial Modernization by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

The Site and Its Three Buildings

The Moriyama Family Residence occupies a long plot running north to south. The Agency for Cultural Affairs places the main house in the northwest corner of the plot, facing east, and the former workshop behind it. The storehouse is a long, narrow building that runs north to south.

• The main house, built in 1904, is a Japanese-style dwelling of timber, single-storey with a partial second floor, under a tiled roof. Its footprint is 218 square meters, and its entrance porch, set in the middle of the front, has a hip-and-gable roof.
• The storehouse dates from the same year, 1904. It is a two-storey building with a stone lower wall and earthen-walled upper storey under a tiled roof, with a footprint of 83 square meters. A tile at the end of its ridge bears the trade name Yama-ni.
• The former workshop is dated to the late Edo period. It is a single-storey timber building under corrugated slate, with a footprint of 80 square meters. The family called it the nabegura, or pot store.

The buildings were registered on different grounds. The main house and the former workshop were registered as models of architectural form; the storehouse was registered as a building that would be hard to reproduce. Their registration numbers are 46-0011 for the storehouse, 46-0025 for the main house and 46-0048 for the former workshop.

The south end of the plot is now a car park for visitors. Excavation there uncovered the remains of furnaces used to melt iron, which were reburied and are preserved underground. The front gate was built in 2000 and is not part of the registration.

Visiting the Moriyama Family Residence

The exterior of the Moriyama Family Residence can be seen at any time. Going inside requires a reservation: tours are accepted on weekdays between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., and requests must reach the Cultural Properties Section of the Aira City Board of Education (tel. 0995-66-3752) at least two weeks in advance. The city may ask you to adjust the date depending on bookings.

With a reservation, a city staff member or a volunteer history guide meets visitors on site. Aira City says it is preparing to open the residence fully, so arrangements may change. (Checked October 2026.)

By rail, get off at Kajiki Station on the JR Nippō Line and walk about 10 minutes. From the Teramae bus stop it is a 2-minute walk. By car, the residence is about 5 minutes from the Kajiki interchange on the Kyushu Expressway, on the south side of the Kajiki Asahi-machi crossing on National Route 10. The car park on the south side of the site holds 14 cars and 4 buses.