Goto Family Residence

The Goto Family Residence at Aki Castle

The Goto Family Residence (五藤家住宅, Gotō-ke Jūtaku) in Doi, Aki City, Kochi Prefecture, is the compound of the Gotō, hereditary senior retainers of the Tosa domain, set inside the moat of the old Aki Castle; its main house was built in 1896, and seven of its structures were entered on the national register of Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2008. Aki City runs the property as the Goto Family Aki Residence (五藤家安芸屋敷, Gotō-ke Aki Yashiki), the name you will see on local signs.

The seven listings are six buildings and one fence: a main house, a detached wing, an annex, a barn, a storage shed, a small office, and a board fence running from the main house to the barn. Everything is timber with tiled roofs, and only the barn rises to a second floor. Two building campaigns share the lot. The main house, detached wing, storage shed and fence date from 1896; the barn and office followed in 1949, and the annex in 1954.

None of it is grand. The main house covers 109 square metres and the storage shed just 8.3 square metres. What makes the Goto Family Residence worth the trip is the way these low roofs gather around a courtyard behind a moat and earthen bank, a working diagram of how a senior samurai household arranged its ground.

A Castle Without a Castle

Aki Castle was a warlord stronghold before the Tokugawa peace. When Yamauchi Kazutoyo took over Tosa in 1601, he placed trusted vassals at five strategic castles across his long, thin province, and Aki went to the Gotō, a family from Owari (today's western Aichi) who had followed Kazutoyo through his hardest campaigns. They became domain elders around 1670 and held senior posts until the end of the shogunate.

The shogunate's one-castle-per-province order of 1615 ended Aki Castle as a fortress, but the Gotō kept their seat inside the inner moat, a precinct locals call the doi, adding a gatehouse and walls along the earth ramparts. Outside the moat they laid out plots for their own retainers, the kachū, and that grid survives as the Doi Kachū district. The Goto Family Residence sits at the heart of it, at the foot of the castle hill.

The present buildings are not Edo-period. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the main house to 1896, while the Aki City Tourism Association gives 1891 for the residence, so the sources do not agree to the year. This site follows the Agency's registration record.

Reading the Layout

Everything turns on the main house, which stands near the centre of the lot with its ridge running east to west. The detached wing lies to its west. North across a courtyard is the barn; the annex stands north of the main house's kitchen wing, and the tiny storage shed is tucked between the annex and the barn. The office sits apart on the east side.

Start in front of the main house. Take in the hipped roof and the lean-to eaves wrapping all four sides, then follow the board fence north from the entrance: it runs straight into the side wall of the barn, so house, fence and barn read as one continuous screen closing the north side. Walk round to the back and you get the service yard, with annex, shed and barn lined up side by side. Finish with the office to the east and the detached wing to the west, and you have seen all seven in a single loop.

Look up at the roofs of the main house and the detached wing. Builders in this typhoon-prone corner of Shikoku lay "right-hand" and "left-hand" pantiles on different slopes to suit the prevailing winds, and on the Goto Family Residence you can see the lap of the tiles change direction from one face to the next.

Why It Was Registered

All seven structures were registered on 7 March 2008, each under the same criterion: that it contributes to the historic landscape of the nation. The listing rewards the ensemble, the way the house, its outbuildings and its fence combine into a single samurai-residence scene, rather than the rank of any one building.

The surroundings carry their own protection. On 9 July 2012 the Doi Kachū district was selected as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings, covering about 410 metres east to west and 360 metres north to south, some 9.2 hectares of hedged lanes and mud walls studded with river stones and old roof tiles. Walk the retainers' lanes first and the scale of the Goto Family Residence at the centre makes immediate sense.

Aki City established the Goto Family Aki Residence as a public facility by ordinance in 2015 and opened it for general use that fiscal year. It now hosts tea gatherings, flower shows, lectures and pre-wedding photo sessions.

Visiting: Hours, Admission and Getting There

The Goto Family Residence is open to the public as the Goto Family Aki Residence, and admission is free. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It closes on Mondays (when a Monday is a national holiday, the closure moves to the next non-holiday) and over the New Year break from 29 December to 3 January.

City rules ask visitors to notify the board of education before entering. The Aki City Museum of History and Folklore across the way handles bookings for the residence, so it is the place to check in and to ask whether the house is booked that day; entry can be refused while it is rented out. Photo shoots that use the residence as a venue need a permit. There is no published rule on casual photography by visitors, so ask at the desk.

The nearest station is Aki on the Tosa Kuroshio Railway's Gomen-Nahari Line, about 5 minutes away by car or about 30 minutes on foot. Free rental bicycles from Aki Station cut the trip to around 15 minutes. Kochi Ryoma Airport is about 40 minutes by car. Doi Kachū has no visitor parking; use the Mizonobe Park car park, a 3-minute walk south of the district, and remember that the lanes are a residential neighbourhood.

The Gotō family's armour, weapons and papers are on display at the museum in front of the residence, a separate facility that charges admission.