Shimomura Family Residence Annex

What Is the Shimomura Family Residence Annex?

The Shimomura Family Residence Annex (下村家住宅離れ, Shimomura-ke Jūtaku Hanare) is a two-storey guest wing from the final years of the Edo period in Daigo Rakuho-cho, Fushimi Ward, Kyoto, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 28, 2011.

Built in timber with a gabled roof of pantiles, the annex covers a building area of 31 square meters and is attached to the west side of the main house. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to between 1830 and 1868 and describes it as a two-storey detached reception wing, or hanare zashiki, of a well-to-do farming household, one that goes back to the closing years of the shogunate.

A Six-Mat Room and a Small Tearoom

The ground floor of the Shimomura Family Residence Annex has two rooms: a room of six tatami mats and a tearoom of the size known as sanjō daime. That means three full mats plus one daime mat, a shortened mat about three quarters of the standard length on which the host prepares tea. It is an intimate room meant only for the tea ceremony.

The six-mat room has a veranda along its south side, looking out over the garden. With a garden-facing room and a tearoom set at the far western end of the house, beyond the reception rooms of the main house, the plan of the Shimomura Annex points clearly to a building used for receiving guests.

An Upper Room Open on Three Sides

Upstairs is a single six-mat room with windows on three of its four sides. Only one wall is closed.

The upper floor was built as a place to sit and take in the view, not for storage or work. In its description the agency singles out two points: that the Shimomura Family Residence Annex is a two-storey reception wing of an upper-class farming family, and that it dates as far back as the end of the Edo period.

The annex was registered under number 26-0389 on the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

Visiting the Annex

The Shimomura Family Residence Annex is part of a private home and is not open to visitors. The tearoom, the veranda and the upstairs room cannot be seen from outside.

Because the annex is joined to the west of the main house and opens south toward the garden, most of it is hidden from the Daigo-michi road. Please stay on the public road and do not enter the property.