Okamoto Family Residence Fence

The Roofed Fence Along the Western Front

The Okamoto Family Residence Fence (岡本家住宅塀, Okamoto-ke Jūtaku Hei) is a late Edo-period roofed plank fence at Mori in Ozu Town, Kikuchi District, Kumamoto Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 23 August 1999. It encloses the western side of the Okamoto compound, runs for 17.2 metres under a tiled coping roof, and carries registration number 43-0033.

The western side is the formal face of the property: road, water channel, stone bridge and front gate in sequence. The Okamoto Family Residence Fence supplies the length of that face, and together with the plank fencing on either side of the front gate it tells anyone passing that this is a samurai house, not just a large farm.

Part of a Set, With Its Own Build

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the fence was designed as one with the plank fence attached to the south side of the front gate and the fence attached to the east side of the rear gate. The fencing that wraps the western and southern boundaries was planned to trace the outline of the property in a single, consistent style.

This stretch differs from the rest in two ways. It stands on a footing of stacked rounded stones, and on the inner side it is braced by stone buttress posts. Buttress posts keep a fence from toppling; making them of stone rather than timber suggests the builders wanted this section to last.

It was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape, and the Agency counts it among the principal elements that express the layout of a country samurai residence. That is why a fence, easily overlooked beside gates and storehouses, holds a registration of its own.

What to Look For

Start at the bottom. The footing of rounded stones is easy to see from the road. Above it rises the plank wall, and above that runs the small tiled roof. Stone, timber and tile stack up in three bands along the full 17.2 metres of the western road.

The stone buttress posts, on the other hand, stand on the inside and cannot be seen from the road. The public side shows only the finished face, with the structure that holds it up kept out of sight, a small instance of the way the whole Okamoto Family Residence manages what it shows the street.

Seeing the Fence

The fence can be seen from the public road running along the west side of the compound. It marks the boundary of a private home, so please do not touch it or climb up to look over.

Photograph from the road. A water channel runs between the road and the fence on this side, so watch your footing if you step toward it.