Yano Family Residence (Hontaku) Miso Storehouse

A Small Storehouse Facing the Street

The Yano Family Residence (Hontaku) Miso Storehouse, in the Kawara district of Nishihara Village, Aso District, Kumamoto Prefecture, is a small storehouse built in 1889 and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 7 June 1999.

In Japanese it is 矢野家住宅（本宅）味噌倉 (misogura), a storehouse whose name records its use for keeping miso. It stands west of the main house, on the road that runs along the front of the plot, with its gable end to the street. At 22 square metres it is the smallest of the eight Yano buildings on the register. It is partly of 2 storeys with a pantiled roof, and the board fence beside it is included in the listing.

One Face Dressed for the Road

The walls of the Yano Family Residence (Hontaku) Miso Storehouse are finished in lime plaster, except on the street front, where the lower wall is clad in weatherboarding. The boards stop at the same height as the board fences on either side, so from the road the fence and the base of the storehouse read as one continuous line.

The building was listed for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs values precisely that alignment with the fences, which tidies the street front of the compound. What earned the listing is not size but the care given to the single face the building shows the public.

In the Middle of the Frontage

Along the western road, reading north to south, stand the barn, the Yano Family Residence (Hontaku) Miso Storehouse and the front gate. The miso storehouse sits in the middle, tying the barn and the gate together through its fences. All three present a finished face to the road, and together they make the front of the estate.

From the road you see the weatherboarded base, the white plastered gable rising above it, and the gabled roof on top. It was built in 1889, the same year as the barn and the storehouse, when the working buildings of the compound were put in order.

The record is inconsistent on construction: the register's structure field gives the building as stone, single storey with a partial 2nd storey, while the description calls it a plastered storehouse. This article reports both.

Visiting the Miso Storehouse

The Yano Family Residence (Hontaku) Miso Storehouse faces the western road, and its front can be seen from the public way. The interior is not open, and the ground behind it is private.

The alignment of weatherboarding and fence is easiest to take in from a few steps back on the far side of the road. Mind the traffic, and keep photography to exterior shots from the road.