A Storehouse You Could Reach Without Getting Wet
The East Storehouse of the Hori Family Residence (堀家住宅東蔵, Horike Jūtaku Higashi-gura) is a two-storey dozō storehouse in the Terada district of Jōyō City, Kyoto Prefecture, built in Meiji 8 (1875) and entered on the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 25 July 2011. It stands east of the main house and connects to it by a covered passage, which is the detail that sets it apart from the other storehouses in the compound.
That passage tells you what the building was for. A storehouse reached across an open yard holds things you retrieve seasonally: harvested grain, tools between uses, the goods of a household that plans in years. A storehouse joined to the house by a roofed corridor holds things you want on an ordinary Tuesday. Documents. Tableware. The lacquer and textiles brought out for guests. Someone in 1875 decided the family needed that kind of access and paid for a passage to get it.
The dimensions are compact: 5.9 metres along the ridge by 4.9 metres in depth, 42 square metres of floor area, but built up over two storeys in full dozō construction with thick earthen walls. Records date a further extension to the early Meiji period. The base is dressed stone, the walls white plaster with vertical boarding along the bottom, the same protective scheme used on the northwest storehouse across the compound.
The roof departs from its neighbours. Where the other buildings here carry sangawara pantiles, the pressed single-piece tiles that became standard in the Edo period because they were cheap and quick, the east storehouse is roofed in hongawara: the older two-part system of broad flat pans alternating with semicircular covering tiles. It costs more, weighs more, and demands a heavier frame. On temples and gates it reads as normal. On a family storehouse it reads as a statement.
Two Details Worth Knowing
The Agency for Cultural Affairs record singles out two features, and both are the kind of thing that goes unnoticed unless someone points them out.
The first is a set of sesshō-kugi fixed to the ridge-end tiles. These are spikes set into the onigawara, the ornamental end tiles that cap a ridge, and their job is to stop birds perching there. Crows and pigeons roosting on a ridge foul the tiles beneath, work the joints loose over years and eventually let water in. The name carries an edge in Japanese, since sesshō means the taking of life, and the spikes were understood as an unkind necessity on a building whose owners were otherwise expected to avoid causing harm. They appear on temples and on high-status houses, rarely on ordinary farm buildings.
The second is on the door. The west face is the front, closed by a pair of outward-opening doors finished in kakego-nuri, a technique in which the door edge and the frame are plastered in interlocking stepped profiles so that when the door shuts the joint becomes an airtight seal. This is how a storehouse keeps fire out, and smoke and damp with it. Above the doorway, lettering has been worked into the plaster in relief with a trowel, the technique called kote-zaiku and known more widely as kote-e when it produces pictures.
Plaster relief on storehouse walls flourished in the nineteenth century, when plasterers competed to demonstrate what could be modelled in lime, and surviving examples across Japan run from family crests and single characters to full pictorial scenes of dragons and waves. What the Hori lettering says is not recorded in the national database, and anyone who wants to know will have to read it from the road.
Registration, Access and the Rest of the Compound
Seven buildings were registered here on the same day in 2011, numbered 26-0373 through 26-0379: the main house, the detached guest rooms, the northwest storehouse, the old storehouse, this east storehouse at 26-0377, the south storehouse with its adjoining room, and the long gatehouse. The criterion recorded for the east storehouse is contribution to the historic landscape of the nation, which is what the storehouses and the gate were all registered under; only the main house was cited as a model of design.
Registration under the 1996 system is a lighter instrument than designation as an Important Cultural Property. It works on notification rather than permission, leaving owners room to repair and go on using their buildings, and it exists precisely for cases like this one, where a compound is still a home.
Which brings up the practical point. The Hori Family Residence is private. There is no admission, no opening hours, no interior access, and the east storehouse stands behind the main house where the public road cannot reach it. The hongawara roof and the trowelled lettering are not on the visitor's route, because there is no visitor's route.
What you can see from the road is the frontage: the long gatehouse and the northwest storehouse, with roof lines rising behind. Photograph from the public way, aim at the buildings, keep residents and the compound interior out of frame, and do not go through the gate.
Terada Station on the Kintetsu Kyoto Line lies about 300 metres west, four or five minutes on foot, roughly 35 minutes from Kyoto Station. JR Jōyō Station is about 15 minutes east on foot.
To see storehouse construction at close range, the Jōyō City Museum of History and Folklore on the fourth floor of Bunka Parc Jōyō, five minutes south of Terada Station, covers local building and farming life. Open 10:00 to 17:00, last entry 16:30, closed Mondays, 200 yen. The main hall of Mito Shrine, an Important Cultural Property of Bunan 5 (1448) and the oldest building in the city, stands 1.3 kilometres east with grounds freely open, and the main hall of Kuze Shrine is also designated.
The Hori Family Residence in Tatsuno City, Hyōgo Prefecture, is an unrelated property: an Important Cultural Property of 23 buildings, once the estate of a village headman under the Hitotsubashi Tokugawa house.
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Q&A
- Can the East Storehouse of the Hori Family Residence be viewed by visitors?
- No. It stands behind the main house within a private compound and is not visible from the public road. The Hori Family Residence has no public opening and no interior access.
- When was the East Storehouse of the Hori Family Residence built?
- In Meiji 8 (1875), with an extension recorded in the early Meiji period. It was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property on 25 July 2011, registration number 26-0377.
- What are the sesshō-kugi on the East Storehouse of the Hori Family Residence?
- Spikes fixed into the ornamental ridge-end tiles to keep birds from perching. Roosting birds foul and loosen the tiles below, so the spikes protect the roof, and the name reflects the discomfort of causing harm to living creatures.
- Why is the roof of the Hori Family Residence East Storehouse different from the others?
- It uses hongawara tiling, the older and more costly two-part system of flat pans and semicircular covers, while the other buildings in the compound use the cheaper single-piece sangawara pantiles.
- Why does the East Storehouse of the Hori Family Residence connect to the main house?
- A covered passage links the two, allowing the household to reach the storehouse without crossing the open yard. That arrangement suits a store used in daily life rather than one opened seasonally.
Basic Information
| Name | East Storehouse of the Hori Family Residence (堀家住宅東蔵, Horike Jūtaku Higashi-gura) |
|---|---|
| Location | 67-1 Terada Chūdaishō, Jōyō City, Kyoto Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration no. 26-0377 |
| Year Designated | Registered 25 July 2011 (70th registration round) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | 5.9 m along the ridge, 4.9 m in depth; floor area 42 m²; dozō construction, two storeys, tiled roof, with covered passage |
| Owner | Private (owner name not published in the national database) |
| Public Access | Not open to the public. Not visible from the public road |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties (Agency for Cultural Affairs): Horike Jūtaku Higashi-gura
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00008728
- Cultural Heritage Online: Horike Jūtaku Higashi-gura
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/239459
- Jōyō City Board of Education: Cultural Properties
- https://www.kyoto-be.ne.jp/joyou-be/cms/?cat=76
- Jōyō City: History and Cultural Properties
- https://www.city.joyo.kyoto.jp/category/8-3-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0.html
Last verified: 2026.07.29