Shimomura Family Residence Main House

What Is the Shimomura Family Residence Main House?

The Shimomura Family Residence Main House (下村家住宅主屋, Shimomura-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a two-storey timber farmhouse in Daigo Rakuho-cho, Fushimi Ward, Kyoto, built in the late Edo period and extended in the early Meiji period, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 28, 2011.

The house covers a building area of 132 square meters and faces north onto the old Daigo-michi road, forming the street front of the Shimomura homestead. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to the late Edo period, between 1751 and 1830, and records an extension made between 1868 and 1882. The published description does not say which part of the Shimomura Main House belongs to that later work.

A Thatched Roof with a Tiled Step-Down

The main roof is a hip-and-gable (irimoya-zukuri) form in thatch, its ridge running east to west. From the west end projects a wing of two reception rooms under a gabled roof of pantiles, set a level lower than the thatch. Japanese builders call this lowered secondary roof an Ochimune. It explains the official description of the roofing as "thatch, partly tile."

In elevation the roofline steps down at the west end: a deep mass of thatch over the family's living quarters, then a clean drop to tile over the rooms kept for guests. The two materials sit side by side on a single building, and that pairing is the most distinctive thing about the Shimomura Family Residence Main House from outside.

Earth Floor to the East, Five Rooms to the West

Inside, the eastern part was originally a packed-earth work floor, where cooking and farm tasks were done. The western part holds five rooms laid out in two rows. The Buddhist altar room and the room next to it are fitted with a toko, the raised alcove where scrolls and flowers are displayed, which makes them the rooms given the most formal treatment in the house.

The plan reads as one long east-west axis. From the earth floor the rows of rooms lead west to the tiled reception wing, and beyond that the two-storey annex joins the house at its western end.

The house was registered under number 26-0388 on the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The agency's description notes that the Shimomura Main House helps form the historic streetscape in front of Daigo-ji temple.

Visiting the Main House

The Shimomura Family Residence Main House is a private home, and its interior is not open to visitors. The earth floor, the five-room plan and the alcoves cannot be seen from outside.

Because the house faces north onto the Daigo-michi, the north side is the face you see from the road. Photographs of the thatched roof are also published in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database. Please stay on the public road and do not enter the property.