Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 8

What Is Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 8?

Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 8 (宮崎本店第８倉庫, Miyazaki Honten Daihachi Soko) is a 2-storey timber warehouse from the early Showa period at the Miyazaki Honten sake and shochu works in Minamigomitsuka, Kusu-cho, Yokkaichi City, Mie Prefecture; it was registered as a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 20, 1996.

With a building area of 105 square metres under a tiled roof, it is the smallest of the four registered warehouses and storage buildings at Miyazaki Honten. It stands directly north of Storage House Building A, the one with the Kikkomiya trademark painted on its gable.

Why Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 8 Was Registered

Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 8 holds registration number 24-0006 from the first round of the system and was listed for contributing to the historic landscape.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs is candid about what has changed here and what has not. The loading entrance has been rebuilt, it notes, but the structural frame of posts and beams is well preserved. The outside has been altered; the skeleton of an early Showa warehouse has not, and that is the basis on which the building was registered.

Earthen Walls under Sheet Iron at Warehouse No. 8

The walls of Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 8 are earthen. When the Agency wrote its description, though, they were sheathed in galvanised iron sheeting, so what you see is metal, with the clay walls still inside.

Mud walls do not stand up well to rain, and wrapping a storehouse in boards or sheet metal to protect them is a common fix on old sake breweries and farm storehouses across Japan. The exterior of Warehouse No. 8 shows the kind of repairs an early Showa warehouse accumulates when it stays in use on a working site.

The Agency's note also says, without explanation, that the building was added in recent years on the rear, northern side. That could mean it was set against the back of Building A at a later date, but the note does not say how this squares with the early Showa dating, or whether the warehouse was moved here or newly attached.

Visiting Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 8

Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 8 is inside a working factory and is not open to the public. We could not confirm whether its position behind Building A is visible from outside the grounds. Contact Miyazaki Honten in advance if you hope to visit or take photographs.

The works is about 9 minutes on foot from Kusu Station on the Kintetsu Nagoya Line.